Returning the Favor
by Kurt
Summary: Well...I finally finished it. Chapter 14 up, and this story is COMPLETE. After fleeing Chesapeake, Dr. Lecter calls in an old favor. Sequel to my first fic.
1. Flight

            The Maryland night was calm.  The sound of the Atlantic crashing gently into the Chesapeake shore was relaxing.  Beach houses sat on their lots.  Some were dark; others were lit.  Hardly any real sound went from any one to the other.  Occasionally, the sounds of people out and celebrating were heard.  In passing one of these houses, you might hear the sounds of people talking, the clink of beer bottles, and the sounds of grilling meat.  

                Through this idyllic scene ran a solitary man.  You might have looked curiously at him as he ran:  he was dressed in a simple but elegant suit.  His wing tips slapped against the ground as he ran.  One hand was wrapped in a silk napkin which was swiftly growing a red rose of blood.  In the other, he clutched a silver – not pewter, not nickel – ice bucket.  

                In the house beyond him, from which he had fled, a woman in a black silk dress stood with her hands in the air as police converged on her.  Inside the house itself was a grisly surprise – the still-breathing ruin of Paul Krendler.  He might survive with medical attention – might – but his days at the Department of Justice were effectively over.  Instead, his days would revolve around re-learning to use the toilet.  

                Dr. Hannibal Lecter ran down the road to where his van was parked.  The van was certainly not his preferred means of transport.  Still, it would do the job.  He saw its bulk ahead, parked just off the road, and grinned.  He had evaded capture by always having a next move ready.  He had one now. 

                When he reached the van, he bent and took the keys smoothly from where he had secreted them under the bumper.  Thankfully, the van had an automatic transmission.  He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and dropped it into drive.  Fortunately, the van also had power steering.  He grinned again as the dash lights came to life.  

                Dr. Lecter drove easily, even though his hand throbbed where he had been forced to chop off his own thumb.  His thumb currently resided in the silver ice bucket lolling on the passenger seat.  As the van rolled forward, he thought about his Clarice for a moment. 

                _Not in a thousand years,_ she had said.  He had been so disappointed.  He would have much preferred her to come with him.  Be with him.  But her hunter's instincts were not to be so easily ignored.  

As he reviewed what Clarice had done to him – over and over and over – the miles slipped away, to Dr. Lecter's destination. 

                The headlights splashed onto a sign for the local municipal airport.  Dr. Lecter turned the van in and pulled to a stop in the parking lot.  He took the ice bucket with him and felt in his pocket with his thumbless hand, wincing as the stump pressed against his thight.  

                The FBI files on Dr. Hannibal Lecter did not indicate that he knew how to fly a plane.  This might be forgiven by the fact that he had never held a pilot's license.  What he did have were a few flying lessons he had taken before his incarceration, all of which he had carefully reviewed in his memory palace countless times, a few solo trips, and a mind that could not be measured by man.  

                A day or so before Dr. Lecter had invited Clarice to his table, he had taken the liberty of renting a plane for a brief sojourn in the sky.  It had refreshed his memory on what he needed to do to avoid crashing.  Instead of returning the keys straightaway, Dr. Lecter had taken them to a hardware store and had duplicates made.  He had returned to the airport, stammering and apologetic.  The rental people had been most kind and saved their remarks about how he was an idiot until after he had left.  

                Dr. Lecter jogged up to the flight school's Piper Cub and took out his duplicate keys.  He unlocked the plane and swiftly preflighted it.  Once inside, he started the plane and contacted the tower.  He advised them that he had just filed his flight plan, even though he had neglected this little tidbit.  When they asked him for the plane's tail number, he provided them with that of one parked a few yards away.  

                He slid the plane down the runway and managed to get it into the air OK.  The tower wished him a safe trip.  Dr. Lecter thanked the tower very much and got the plane to his assigned altitude.  As he pointed the plane in the direction he wanted to go, he thought about what he knew about reimplantation. 

                Six hours.  It had only been half an hour since he fled Krendler's lake house.  Two in the air.  It ought to do.  And he knew who he could call on.  

                Dr. Lecter's intelligence was not measurable by modern man, and he knew exactly what he planned to do.  He had known the moment he raised the cleaver high in the air and told Clarice, "_Now this is going to hurt."  _Once the plane was in the air and it was simple to keep it going where he wanted, he took a moment to duck back into his memory palace and review the information he needed.  From a large book in a white room, Dr. Lecter took an address and phone number.   He did not know the city he was going to, but a city map stored in his memory palace gave him an acceptable sense of direction.  

                The hum of the engine was soothing as the plane cut through the night air.  Dr. Lecter turned the windshield wipers on and off.  The plane was thirty years old, and virtually the same model he had learned on all those years ago.  

                He opened the ice bucket and took a moment to review his thumb.  Its color was poor – a nasty, sickly gray – but that did not disturb him terribly.  He knew that it was to be expected.    The stump throbbed.  Dr. Lecter took a deep breath and made it go away.  The throb simply cut off, not bothering him anymore. He knew that the nerves were still blaring, and that the pain was still being transmitted.  He simply refused to receive it.  Instead, he thought about who he was planning on paying a visit to.  It had been many years, but Dr. Lecter was confident that his contact would not turn him down or turn him in.

                He had a favor to call in, after all. 

                According to the instruments, and to Dr. Lecter's own mental image of where he should be, he was close to his destination.   The radio squawked with other planes seeking to land and just chatting with the tower.  Private planes are notorious for their habit of yakking on the radio.  The fellow currently speaking would simply flop back dead in his seat if the tower did not call his wife for him.  He was chatting with the tower personnel about which restaurant had the best pork sandwich.  Dr. Lecter pulled a face of distaste and waited politely.  

                He asked for and received permission to land.  Very carefully, his wounded hand delicate on the controls, Dr. Lecter brought the plane down and felt the solid _bump_that meant he was now back on _terra firma_.  The landing was not as smooth as he would have liked, but it had been years since his flying lessons, and all in all he was satisfied.  

                Dr. Lecter abandoned the plane without a second thought.  He strolled over nonchalantly to the parking lot, which was not terribly different from the parking lot at the airport he had departed from, or any other one in America, for that matter.  These were the municipal airports, rarely policed and mostly flown by hobbyists and students.  There would be no security people here with guns and walkie-talkies to seek out a man with a wounded hand.  

                What there was, instead, was a hefty man busy lifting a large cooler into the back of an old but serviceable Jeep Cherokee.  Dr. Lecter nodded politely at the man.  

                "Good morning," he said. 

                "Morning," the man grunted, and fished in the pocket of his flannel shirt for a cigarette and a wooden kitchen match.  He scratched it into life on his thumb and lit his cigarette meditatively.  "How's the flying conditions out there?  Early to be in the air." 

                "Excellent," Dr. Lecter assured him.  "I like flying in the early morning.  It's quite peaceful."  

                "I bet," the man said.  His eyes floated down to the napkin binding Dr. Lecter's hand.  "What happened to your hand there?" he asked, his eyes wide.  

                "This," Dr. Lecter said.  His good hand came out from behind his back.  In it, he held the meat cleaver he had used to chop off his thumb back at Chesapeake.  He knew that he would not be as strong as he normally was, and the cleaver's weight was comforting.  He drove the cleaver between the man's eyes.  The man dropped dead without another word, the cleaver sticking out from where it had stuck in the bone of his forehead.  

                Dr. Lecter reached down and worked the cleaver free.  Even wounded, he was quite strong and it was a simple matter to get the man into the back of the Cherokee.  He opened the cooler and put the man's head into the icy water there, where it would not get the trim bloody.  No one would see the corpse stuffed down behind the door unless they actually went and looked.  Then he threw himself behind the wheel and sighed.  

                The engine started and Dr. Lecter sought out his goal.  The Interstate was not far away.  Dr. Lecter took the on-ramp and headed towards the city.  


	2. Reunion

            The shower was running in the small bathroom. The radio sitting on the bathroom counter was tuned to light rock. The woman inside the shower sang along with the radio.  Steam billowed from the shower stall.  As she rinsed her body, soap bubbles cascaded over two scars on her back.  Two scars that were shaped like f-holes on a violin, curving across her kidneys.    Two scars that had been given to her by Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

                Dr. Erin Lander, surgical resident, stepped from the shower and toweled herself off.  Her medicine cabinet contained a staggering variety of medication.  She selected a few orange vials and opened them.  Some pills she took immediately; others she raked into a plastic pill box for later.  She dressed quickly and dropped the pill box into the pocket of her white lab coat.  

                Dr. Lander took a moment, as she did almost every day, to think about the scars on her back and how they had gotten there.  Five years ago, she had attracted the eye of a man she had known as Robert Lawson.  That had not been his real name.  

                It had begun as a simple friendship at her then place of work.  At that time, she had required dialysis, as she had for years. Then, without warning, Dr. Lawson had kidnapped her, drugged her unconscious, and then implanted a new set of kidneys in her.  She did not know where he had gotten them from, or how he had gotten them from their original owner.  For a week, she had been kept in a curious cross between captive and patient.  Then, as quickly as he had appeared in her life, he had vanished.  

                Erin had gotten on with her life as best she could.  Her schedule kept her busy, and she refused to allow her transplant to get in the way of her work.  But every day, she thought of her former captor and heard his metallic voice in her mind.  Sometimes, even in the OR, she felt his eyes on her back zeroing in on her lower back.  Seeking the scars that he had put there.  Even though she knew he was absent, she still felt him watching her at times.  

                The FBI had questioned her, and it was through them she had learned the true identity of her captor.  A woman not much older than herself had confronted her with his picture.  Other agents had interrogated her, including that evil one, that…she could not think his name without shuddering.  Crawford.  Although Erin had denied it – she had little choice – she knew that Agent Starling had been correct in her suspicions.  For her captor had been none other than Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  Gentleman, genius, and cannibal.  Also, skilled kidnapper and transplant surgeon, as Erin could attest.  

                To top it off, Dr. Lecter had not simply discarded her original kidneys.  Instead, he had sautéed them in a sherry sauce and eaten them with her on her last night with him.  Although Erin had been kept heavily drugged throughout her stay with him, she did have memories of a cream-colored gown, an elegant dinner, and the taste of her own kidneys rich in the sherry sauce.  She hadn't known at the time.   Mercifully, he had allowed her to remain ignorant of that fact until later.  But the memory remained, colored by her realization of what she had been eating.  The smell of the sauce, the elegant surroundings, and the smiling man in the tuxedo all carried an element of horror that had not been there before.

                Perhaps the most bizarre thing about it was why.  Erin had done her own research into Dr. Lecter's exploits, in an attempt to make sense of it all.  She was, she discovered, a great rarity in the world:  someone who had been in Hannibal Lecter's custody and lived to tell the tale without grievous physical or mental injury.  But she could not tell anyone of what had really happened to her.  Dr. Lecter had used drugs and hypnosis to effectively lock her tongue.  Only alone, in the safety of her apartment, was she able to admit who her captor truly had been.  

                Nothing in the myriad web sites and FBI files had suggested he would ever do anything like this.  Dr. Hannibal Lecter's victims mostly died.  Two had lived.  And then there was her.  And the only reason why was for his own amusement.   His whimsy, one might say.  She had attracted his eye because she was polite to him.  She had amused him and so he had become interested in helping her.  And he had kidnapped her and cared scrupulously for her for a week because it was something to do.   Fun.  Amusing.  Whimsy.

                It was hard to believe, but that was all there was.  His fun.  He had done this to her and for her for his own amusement.  The sort of thing one can only try to grasp alone over countless sleepless nights.  

                But a surgical resident's life rarely lends itself to reflection.  Erin threw a Pop Tart into her toaster and poured herself a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee.  According to her clock, she had forty-five minutes before morning rounds.   Coffee was something she knew, and the brew was a rich Brazilian roast.  The pleasant smell of the coffee inundated her kitchen.  It was strong, and Erin's eyes closed as she sipped from the mug.  

                A knock came at the door.  Erin scowled and rose to get it.  Who would be at her doorstep at 5 AM?  She looked through the peephole and saw a man standing with his head lowered.  Cautiously, she unlocked the door, but left the chain on as she opened it.  A small sliver of open doorway allowed her to see him.  

                "Hello?" she said cautiously.

                "Hello, Erin," the man said.  His voice was strained with some discomfort.  There was a metallic rasp to his voice, as if he rarely spoke.  A cold finger touched her spine.  Then, the man raised his head.  Maroon eyes and delicate features stared back at her.  

                Erin Lander's knees trembled and her arms fell slack.  Her tongue caught between her teeth and she goggled in terror.  The self-confident young doctor was gone, replaced by a scared little girl faced with the boogeyman in her closet capering and grinning at her.  

                Hannibal Lecter stared at her from the tiny slot that the chain allowed.  He neither capered nor grinned.  He simply gave her a pleasant if pained smile.  

                "Open the door, please.  I need your help, Erin." 

                Instead, Erin tried to push the door closed.  Dr. Lecter had foreseen this, and pushed back.  He reached in gently and simply removed the door chain from its latch.  Calmly, he entered the apartment and closed the door behind him.  He sighed and reached for her face.  His strong fingers were on one side of her face; his thumb on the other.  He squeezed gently to focus her attention.

                "Dr. Lander, you have a patient," he said.  

                "You," Erin said in a voice shaky and weak with terror.  "You…you said you wouldn't hurt me."  

                "I won't," Dr. Lecter said calmly.  "Please.  I don't have time for this.  Might I have a cup of that coffee?"  

                Erin nodded dumbly.  Then she took in the silver ice bucket, the napkin bandage sodden with blood, and shook her head.  She took down a cup from her cabinet, filled it, and presented it to him.  The feeling of _déjà vu was strong.  Now they would discuss an article in JAMA, and then he would ask if he would have to leave, and then…  She pushed the thought away._

                "Don't hurt me," she whispered strengthlessly.  

                "I promised I won't, and I plan to keep that promise," Dr. Lecter said, and took the cup.  "I wouldn't have come if I didn't need you."  He held up his wounded hand and placed the ice bucket on her kitchen table.  

                With a visible wound to work with, Erin was able to focus.  She took a deep, shuddering breath, closed her eyes, and then took his hand gently.   She opened the ice bucket and examined its grisly contents.  Dr. Lecter was pleased to note that she did not flinch.  But this, she was trained for.

                "Okay," Erin said in a voice that was shaky, but still more stable.  "You cut off your thumb." 

                "It was necessary," Dr. Lecter agreed.  "Now:  reattach it, if you please." 

                "I'll take you down to the hospital now." 

                Dr. Lecter shook his head.  "No hospital."  

                Erin Lander sighed and swallowed.  Dr. Lecter could see her throat working visibly.  That meant he would not like what she was going to tell him.  But still she was, and that was a good sign. 

                "Dr. Lecter," she said primly, "this is not a button you want sewed back on your shirt.  You need to be admitted, we need to do this surgically, and you need to spend a few days post-op in the hospital." 

                Dr. Lecter shook his head.  "It won't do," he said.  "The police are looking for me." 

                "I see," Dr. Lander said archly back to him.  "Did you feed someone else their own body parts?" 

                Dr. Lecter smiled tightly.  "Do you really want me to answer that question, dear Erin?" 

Erin took a long pull on her coffee and stared at nothing for a long moment before answering.  "You know what?  No.  I don't." 

                "If you don't mind," he said, "time is wasting.  It's been about three hours all told, and I'd rather recover as much function as I can."  

                "I can't do this in my apartment, Dr. Lecter.  This is not meatball surgery." 

                "I did not require an OR when I helped you," Dr. Lecter observed pointedly.  

                Erin's hand trembled on the handle of her mug.  She slammed it down on the table.  Her plate jumped.  Her eyes gleamed with a combination of fear and excitement.  She had waited for years to confront the monster, and here was her chance.

                "That's true.  You didn't.  But what you did you did for your own amusement, doctor." 

                Dr. Lecter raised his eyebrows, partially amused at the outburst, and partially amused at the fact that she had actually tried to divine his motive.  "It helped you," he said mildly.  

                "Yes, you did.  And thank you. But you took a chance with me, Dr. Laws-Dr. Lecter."  She fixed him with her eyes.  "Let's be brutally honest, doctor.  If something had happened – if I had bled out on the table, or died of post-op infection, or developed graft-versus-host disease…you'd have shrugged your shoulders and said, 'Oh, well', wouldn't you?" 

                Dr. Lecter acted slightly hurt.  In truth, he was not.  He was patronizingly impressed, the way an adult will be when a toddler proudly shows off a newly attained skill.  It was as close to an outburst as she dared get with him.  Still, promising, quite promising.  

                "I was exceedingly careful," he protested.  Privately, he thought that the old jokes about Irish tempers must have been true.  

                "But if it _had happened," she persisted, "it wouldn't have meant much to you.  You'd have just shrugged and said you tried, too bad, experiment failed.  And buried me right next to wherever you buried…the donor."  _

                Dr. Lecter took several moments before answering.  Then, he simply smiled, nodded, and said "Yes."

                There were several long moments of silence before Erin spoke again.  Her eyes spoke volumes.  After all these years, she was vindicated.  Won and lost at the same time.  Won, because her analysis of him was correct.  And lost, because perhaps, in some way, she had hoped for something more.  He could see her try to shield a bit of disappointment in her eyes as she spoke. 

                "I don't feel that way.  I'll help you, Dr. Lecter.  I'll do what I can to hide you from the police.  I know I owe you, and I'll pay.  But you have to trust me and you have to let me help you the way I know how." 

                Dr. Lecter considered.  She seemed on the level about helping him.  He could discern lies with razor accuracy.  He doubted she would call the police on him.  He knew the idea:  as a doctor, you were not supposed to judge your patients, just help them.  It was an idea not without merit, and he had an intellectual appreciation for that ethical stance in medicine, but Dr. Lecter had found life to be ever so much more _fun once he had jettisoned such well-meaning ideas.  _

                "If you can figure out how to get me in the hospital without attracting attention, then you may do the procedure in the OR," he said.  "No more."  

                Erin didn't even blink.  "I know," she said.  "Easy.  I need to get a few things, though."  She rose. 

                Dr. Lecter caught her arm as she passed.  "You're not going to turn me in, are you?" 

                He saw a shadow of fear waver over her face as she thought.  "No," she said resolutely.  "I won't turn you in, Dr. Lecter.  But you have to trust me.  I trusted you, after all." 

                "You didn't have much choice," he observed.  

                "Neither do you," she answered.    The door closed behind her, leaving Hannibal Lecter alone.


	3. Admission

            _Author's note:  _

_                First off, disclaimers, I don't own Hannibal or Clarice bla bla bla, just borrowing.  I do own Erin Lander and a few associated characters, except for the ER doctor who, as you probably guessed, hails from the TV show ER (which I like.  Incidentally, go have a look at the last chapter of 'Blood Ties' – they pop up there too.)  _

_                As you've probably noticed, this story differs from previous works in that it does not contain wholesale another-chapter-another-painful-death Susana-style killing and won't have it in future chapters.  Well, yes, okay, there was the one murder at the end of Chapter 1.  Don't be upset.  It was a mercy killing.  He had a certain naïve charm – but no muscle.  (I'm sure a few people ought to be able to figure out where that came from.)_

_                The end of this chapter ought to surprise a few people.  My first attempt at such a thing.   _

Dr. Lecter sighed as he sat at the kitchen table.  For the first time, he was beginning to feel some relief.  He felt safe, and that was nothing to sneeze at.  He was hungry, but knew he would have to forgo food if he was to go to the OR.  But as for Erin, he hardly wanted his surgeon to be thinking about food.  He rose and walked over to the toaster, where the Pop Tart was becoming fragrant.  He lifted it from the toaster and stared at it in distaste.  Holding it between his thumb and forefinger like a dead rat, Dr. Lecter carried it over to the wastebasket and gave it the burial it deserved.  

                Erin's refrigerator contained mostly food that was easy to cook.  The kitchen was obviously the domain of a woman who regarded cooking as a chore.  A pity, he thought.  He glanced out the window and noticed a convenience store across the street.  He wrapped his thumb again and left the apartment.  He had no keys, but he believed he could get back to the apartment before Erin arrived. 

                The street was calm and quiet: it was too early for anyone to really be up and about.  Dr. Lecter was the only customer in the store.  The bleary-eyed clerk did not seem to notice his bloody hand.  Calmly, Dr. Lecter selected some eggs, butter, and instant sausages.  It wasn't terribly good food, he allowed, but it would be better than the chunk of dough and chemicals that Erin had planned on eating.  

                Back in the apartment, he set to work.  Erin's stove was a simple electrical model, rarely used.   He supposed the microwave was what she preferred.  _Poor girl, she really ought to try real cooking. _  Still, it was enough to get the eggs and sausage cooking.  

                A key scratched in the lock.  Dr. Lecter turned.  Just in case, he reached for his Harpy clipped to his waistband.  Erin Lander entered the apartment and sniffed the fragrant aroma of the sausages.  

                "You shouldn't be cooking," she said mildly.  

                "And you shouldn't be eating that…swill."  He pointed distastefully at the box of Pop Tarts.  "Chocolate Pop Tarts."  He shuddered delicately.  "Do you know what they put in those?" 

                He served her the eggs and sausage but took none for himself.  She glanced at him with a guilty look.  

                "Aren't you eating?" 

                "Not if I'm going into surgery," he said calmly.  

                Erin took the unspoken acquiescence and nodded.  

                "So what is your plan?" he asked.  

                Erin placed two bags on the table.  One was plastic, the other paper.  In the plastic bag he saw a dirty, old pair of men's pants, a ragged flannel shirt, and a cheap jacket.  He scowled at it.  

                "Here," she said.  "I'll help you change."  

                "Wherever did you get these rags?" he asked distastefully.  

                "Salvation Army thrift store down the block," she said after swallowing her eggs.  

                "Is it open at 5 AM?" 

                "No," Erin admitted, "but they don't have a burglar alarm either." 

                Dr. Lecter raised his eyebrows eloquently and said nothing.  

                "I didn't _steal_ them.  I left money.  It's not my fault if they leave a back door open." 

                Dr. Lecter did not like the idea of those filthy rags touching his body, but he divined her plan.  He took them into the living room and pulled them on.  His lack of a thumb made it difficult, but not impossible.  He noticed the clothing was authentically stained and dirty.  When he returned, Erin had wolfed down her meal and gave him the paper bag.  

                Dr. Lecter reached into the bag and removed a flat glass bottle containing a shockingly bright red liquid.  _MD 20/20_, the label read.  His lips curved down in distaste.  

                "Mad Dog 20/20?" he asked bitterly.  "You expect _me _to drink wino wine?"

                Erin took the bottle from him and opened it.  She spilled a bit on her hand and patted it on his cheeks and clothing like cologne.  Dr. Lecter submitted to this indignity with a sigh.  

                "They probably thought I was nuts, buying cheap booze at five in the morning," Erin said as she worked.  She pointedly ignored his query.  "But it'll do.  Now drink some."  

                Dr. Lecter shook his head.  "If I must stoop to _wearing_ this, then I shall.  But this pig slop shall not pass my lips."  

                Erin sighed.  "Then just rinse it in your mouth and spit it out."  

                Dr. Lecter complied.  The awful wine hit his tongue and burned.  It was sickly sweet and its aroma rose nauseating in his sinuses.  He stepped to the sink and spat it out several times.  His features pulled down in distaste.  He wouldn't be able to _look _at wine the same way anymore.  Behind him, Erin watched calmly.  

                "Dr. Lander, sadism in a physician is unbecoming," he managed.   "If I gave that to an animal, that would be cruelty.  And you wanted me to _drink _that?" 

                "It's for your own good," she said, unmoved.  She replaced the silk napkin covering his hand with a paper towel, and then handed him a Styrofoam cup filled with ice.  "You want to pass for a bum, don't you?  No one will think about it if you're a bum." Dr. Lecter glanced inside and saw his thumb neatly nestled in the ice.  He nodded.  She was right:  if he walked into the hospital in a suit and tie, that would draw attention.  As a homeless person, he would go unnoticed.  They would treat him and send him on, presuming him to be just another one of the human flotsam that washed into ER's all over America every day.  

                "Here's your story," she said archly.  "You were sleeping in the alley over on Fifth, when Freaky Freddy found you and said you were in his spot.  Once you say Freaky Freddy, the staff will know who you mean." 

                "I see," Dr. Lecter said.  "And who, may I ask, is Freaky Freddy?" 

                "He's a homeless guy," Erin explained.  "Completely crazy.  Every now and then they bring him in and stick him in the psych ward.  He's fine –well, not fine, but all right—when he's med compliant.  So then they release him, he goes back to the streets, loses his meds, and then the whole cycle starts all over again.  Freaky Freddy also hurts people when he's loose, he's hurt them bad.  One day he'll hurt someone who isn't homeless and then they'll put him away for good.  But as long as he only hurts other bums, no one seems to care enough to put him in an institution.  We know Freaky Freddy very well, and we know what he does." 

                "A modern tragedy," Dr. Lecter observed. 

                "Freaky Freddy gives me a lot of work to do," she said.  "Especially if you're in his spot." She checked her watch.  "I have to go now," she said.  "Rounds." 

                Dr. Lecter waved at her with his good hand.  "Go, then."  He accompanied her as far as the door, not wanting people to see her leave with the bum.  She locked the door up behind them.  

                "The hospital is three blocks up," she said, pointing.  "You know the drill." 

                "ER, then ask for a surgical consult." 

                Erin nodded. 

                "Go, doctor," he said.  "I'll see you in a bit." 

                Her footsteps echoed on the stairway as she ran down the stairs.  The stairway had a window, and he was able to watch her get into a well-maintained Civic and drive off.  _Odd that she drives to work when it's three blocks away.  Then again, she's a single woman.  Probably for safety.  _  

                Altogether, he was not displeased with how things were going.  He did not like the idea of being in the hospital, but she was right in that it wasn't a button on his shirt.  Dr. Lecter did not hold it against her that she could not do it in her apartment.  He could have, but she was not his peer.  No one was.  He wouldn't hold her insistence on the hospital against her.  So long as he wasn't apprehended while under anesthesia, he might be able to get out unscathed.  Once he was up, he would escape, of course.  

                He allowed her fifteen minutes and then walked briskly from the apartment.  The stolen Cherokee was parked across the street.  Dr. Lecter took the keys from his pocket and started it.  In short order, he could see the hospital, a large ugly building looming over the others.  He eschewed the Emergency pull-through.  Instead, he pulled into the parking garage.  He could leave the Cherokee here if he had to:  far better than leaving it on the street right by her apartment for any police officer to find.  

                He did take a moment to put a blanket over the body in the back.  Once this was over, he had to dump the body somewhere.  Perhaps Erin would be able to tell him where in this city he could find a good dump site.  He took a moment to observe himself in the side mirror of the Jeep before walking down to the ER's red sign. 

                The illusion was not complete – his hair was neatly cut, and he lacked the desperate look of those who live on the streets.  But Dr. Lecter thought it would do.  He certainly reeked of that horrible wine, at any rate.  He walked carefully to the stairs, the Styrofoam cup clenched in his good hand.  When he reached the ground, Dr. Lecter began to stagger, as if half drunk.  He licked his lips and spoke to himself. 

                "He cut off my thumb," he whispered.  No.  His syllables were too nuanced and proper.   Needed to be more mushmouthy.  He thought of how Miggs talked.  He remembered back to his own days in the ER.  How did the bums speak when they came in?

                "'E cut off my fuckin' thumb," Dr. Lecter groaned in a choked voice.  Much better.  "Freaky Freddy, man.  Cut off my thumb.  My goddam thumb." He nodded approvingly.   

                The ER was busy, and no one really looked at him as he came in.  Dr. Lecter made a note to keep this in mind:  with a lab coat and the proper ID, he could probably loot as much drugs and equipment as he could possibly need.  There were screams, chattering, and gurneys going back and forth.  Machines beeped and children cried.  Dr. Lecter nodded.  Standard ER, anywhere in the world.  It was all the same.  

                Dr. Lecter lurched up to the ER admissions desk.  A young girl seated behind it looked him over, snapping her gum.  

                "Can I help you?" she asked.  

                "Cut off my thumb," Dr. Lecter cried.  You would have thought he had few teeth, or perhaps a numb tongue, his words were so mushed and incomprehensible.  "Freaky Freddy, man.  Cut off my goddam thumb."   Dramatically, he removed the paper towel from his hand and displayed the gory wound.  

                The girl seemed unperturbed.  "OK.  I just need your name, then go see the triage nurse."  

                "Tom," Dr. Lecter said, the first name that came to mind.  "Tommy Daum."  

                "Any insurance, Mr. Daum?" the girl asked, writing it down on a clipboard.  

                "Naw, honey," Dr. Lecter mumbled.  "I'm..onna street, you know?"  

                "See the triage nurse over there, please," the girl said politely, and pointed.  

                _What a nice girl, _Dr. Lecter thought.  _Respect to those in need of help is so rare these days, especially in the young.  _  

                The triage nurse examined both his hand and his thumb.  Dr. Lecter told her in the mushmouth voice he had adopted that Freaky Freddy had attacked him early that morning, claiming that Dr. Lecter was in his spot.  Erin had not led him wrong:  the nurse simply nodded and led him to a treatment bay.    

                "Freaky Freddy, huh?  He's a bad one," the nurse said sympathetically.   

                "Yeah," Dr. Lecter said.  "My thumb, 'e cut off my fuckin' thumb."  

                The nurse helped him onto the treatment table.  Dr. Lecter laid back against it and sighed.  He heard the nurse talking to someone outside.  Probably an ER physician.  

                "This one's quick," he overheard.  "One look at him, CBC, tox and drug screen, and boom, he's surgical."  

                Perhaps ten minutes or so later, a bald man pulled back the curtain separating Dr. Lecter from the unfortunates on either side of him.  He entered and pulled the curtain shut behind him with a screech of plastic rings.  

                "Mr. Daum, I'm Dr. Green," he said in a tone both concerned and patronizing.  "Understand you had some trouble with Freaky Freddy this morning."  

                "Yeah, the sumbitch cut off my thumb," Dr. Lecter groaned again.  He had briefly been back in his memory palace, reviewing various case histories of bums he had treated a lifetime ago at Maryland-Misericordia.  So far, he was simply discovering that his first idea had been correct – say the same thing over and over, groan, act like you're going to have the DT's.  It seemed to be working.  None of the ER staff around him seemed to have the slightest idea who he really was. 

                "Do you have it here?" 

                "Yeah, inna cup," Dr. Lecter grunted.  He gave the cup to the doctor and showed him his hand.  "Can dey put it back on?  I dowanna have no thumb, yanno?"  He hoped they sent him up to surgery soon.  Speaking in this _lumpenproletariat _manner was beginning to make his tongue hurt.  

                "I'm gonna call a surgeon to have a look at it," the doctor said calmly.  "They can tell you if it's reimplantable or not.  Now have you had anything to drink this morning?" 

                "Naw," Dr. Lecter said.  "Jus' a swig afore I came here for couritch, yanno?  But I ain't had nothin' since las' night."  

                The doctor seemed unconvinced, and took a blood sample.  _Fool, _Dr. Lecter thought.  _You could have done a few sobriety tests if you wanted to know if I was intoxicated.  You needn't let the machine do all your work.  _ 

                He lay back and relaxed.  It wasn't until the doctor left him be that he realized he had no weapon.  If they happened to realize who he was, he would be largely helpless.  

                No. Wait.  This was a treatment room. That meant there had to be scalpels, scissors, and forceps.  Not exactly ideal weapons, but he could defend himself with them.  He slid off the table and swiftly went through the drawers with the nimbleness of a master thief.  A pair of scissors and a few scalpel blades presented themselves.  He pocketed most of them and placed one scalpel blade under the pillow on his gurney, still in its sterile wrapper.  He wasn't concerned that they would hear the drawers.  Dr. Lecter had worked himself in emergency rooms.  ER's were invariably swamped and always undermanned, which meant that patients spent a long time before they were seen by the doctor, which in turn meant that they got bored.  Anyone who had ever been in an ER eventually played with the drawers out of sheer boredom.  

                  A few minutes later, the curtain swept aside, and there she was.  Dr. Erin Lander, five feet tall, in scrubs and a lab coat.  She favored him with a smile and closed the curtain.  

                "Hello," she said for the benefit of those outside the curtain.  "I'm Dr. Lander.  I'm going to have a look at your hand."  

                She took his hand and solicited his story, even though she knew what it was.  Dr. Lecter played out his role in the shadow play and recounted the sad tale of his fictional encounter with Freaky Freddy, _bete noire_ of the local ER.  She nodded sympathetically and left for a moment.  She left the curtain slightly open, and he could see her pick up a phone at the ER desk and dial a number.  

                The din of the ER prevented him from hearing her.  Dr. Lecter closed his eyes and focused.  Years of living on a ward of madmen had given him the ability to tune out noise and home in on what he wanted to like a laser beam.  He did so now, concentrating on her conversation.  

                "Hi.  Yeah, I have a guy I want to admit.  Thumb is severed at the base.  I want to admit him for reimplantation."  She paused.  "No, he doesn't have insurance.  He's homeless."  Dr. Lecter could not tune in the voice from the speaker, which chagrined him.  On the ward, he had amused himself occasionally by eavesdropping on Barney's phone calls and telling him what the other person had said.  

                She seemed frustrated.  "But I've been dying to do a reimplant," she said in the tones of a girl denied permission to go out with her friends.   "No…no…I've observed and I've dissected tons of mice, though.  Mice probably hate me.  Yes.  No, all you need to do is supervise.  It's good.  Straight cut all the way through.  He even missed the bone."  Dr. Lecter was not surprised.  He had deliberately cut where it would be easy to reimplant.  

                She smiled triumphantly.  "Thank you," she said.  "You're great.  Really."  She returned to the bay he was in and ran the curtain shut.  She seemed pleased with herself.  

                "We're going to admit you and try to surgically re-attach your thumb," she said in a businesslike tone.  "I'm going to have the nurse give you something to help you relax and then we'll take you up."  

                Dr. Lecter tilted his head.  In a tone quiet enough that no one outside the curtains could hear, he asked, "What are you giving me?" 

                "Pentathol," she whispered back.  "Standard quick-acting sedative.  Why?" 

                "Double the dose," he urged.  "I metabolize drugs very quickly.  The standard dose won't do anything for me." 

                She looked peeved.  "Dr. Lecter-," she began.  He raised a warning hand.  She blushed, realizing her error.  

                "Mr. Daum, I can't exceed the normal dosage." 

                He shrugged.  "I'm not arguing with you, doctor." How much better it was to speak in his normal voice, instead of the horrible mushy bum voice.  "I'm advising you."  

                "I'll give you the first shot and then increase it," she said.  "They watch resident prescribing habits, you know."  

                That, Dr. Lecter could accept, and he nodded graciously.  Erin took a gown from a cabinet and held it out to him.  

                "Now we need to get you in a gown for surgery," she said in a brisk, nursey tone.  "I'll help you get changed."  

                Dr. Lecter fingered the paper gown and eyed her.  "From bad to worse, Dr. Lander.  I can't say I think much of your taste in men's clothing."  

                "Okay," Erin said promptly.  "I'll go get your thousand-dollar suit, and you can bleed on it in the OR." 

                Dr. Lecter tipped his head, grinning.  _"Touchè_, Dr. Lander."  She reached for the buttons on his shirt.  Her hands trembled just a bit as she undid the buttons.  Her fingers were light and quick on his chest.  Dr. Lecter supposed she had probably heard of the nurse back at the asylum.  _Well_, he thought, _she was rude.  If she had only bothered to say 'Please move', instead of 'Move it,' I wouldn't have harmed a hair on her head.  _

There was fear in her eyes as she slid him out of his shirt.  Some was fear that he might attempt to bite her; some, he supposed, was fear hidden deep within her for five years.  Dr. Lecter simply lay back on the table and helped her as best he could.  She bent across him in order to get his wounded hand out of the sleeve.  He could hear her breathing, quick and shallow, a prey animal exposing her neck to a predator.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose as she bent awkwardly across him.   Her scent filled his nostrils and he read the tale it told.

                "You washed those scrubs in your own washing machine, not the hospital's," he said gently.  He inhaled again sharply.  Scent is strongly related to taste, and he fancied that the scent he drew into his nose was pulled down to his tongue.  He tasted it and considered.   "You don't wear perfume while you're at work," he observed, "but on your days off you wear Isabel Calla, don't you?  But not much.  A tiny bottle, the smallest one they make so you can justify the expense.   You buy it alone and spirit it into your medicine cabinet like contraband, and you're parsimonious enough that you just spray the tiniest bit you can on yourself.   And you use scented shampoo.  Rose and jasmine, I believe.  You're growing accustomed to the idea that you're actually allowed a few luxuries, are you not?"  He inhaled again.  It was a quite pleasurable scent, Dr. Lecter thought.    

                She worked his hand free from the sleeve quite gently, mindful not to bump the wound that had replaced his thumb.  Dr. Lecter watched her as she took his hand out of the cloth tunnel.  The hateful shirt was below him.  Dr. Lecter rather hoped that she would throw it away.  Or burn it.  No human being deserved to wear such a horrid garment.  

                She was looking at him with a mixture of fear and thought on her face.  Dr. Lecter knew the look and tilted his head.  She was thinking about something.  What, he wasn't sure, but he was fairly confident she was not supposed to do it.   He was quite familiar with the way someone looked when she considered an irrational action.  She looked to and fro to see if anyone was watching.  No one was.  She had drawn the privacy curtain when she came in.  Her feet were visible below the curtain, but nothing more.  

                Then she lunged.  At first, Dr. Lecter thought she meant to bite him and started in surprise.  Her arms curled around his neck, meeting at the back of his head.  Hannibal Lecter tensed for a moment before realizing she was not attempting to choke or restrain him.     

                Then her lips were soft and smooth on his, and he breathed in a great snuffle of the clean, rose-and-jasmine scent of her hair.  His hands fumbled against her back and he blinked.  How long had it been since a woman had done this to him? Far too long.  He held her gently as she held him.  Then she broke the kiss, blushed, and pulled her hair back out of nervous habit.  Dr. Lecter admired the flush of red at her cheeks.  

                "Was that standard treatment?" he asked quizzically. 

                "No," she said, embarrassed.  She helped him remove his pants with the utmost in detached professionalism to cover her prior lapse.  The horrid clothing went in a green plastic bag labeled PATIENT BELONGINGS.  Then she stepped away from him and opened the curtain again.   She asked the nurse to administer a sedative and bring Mr. Daum up to surgery, please.  

                Dr. Hannibal Lecter watched her departing back.  He paid only token attention to the nurse who gave him a shot and handed him over to an attendant who began to roll him up to the surgical floor.  Luckily, he ended up in the same elevator as her.  She faced forward stiffly, fidgeting as she waited, and he did not need to see her face to know she was furiously blushing.  

                Leaning back against his stretcher, he smiled. 


	4. Recovery

_Author's note: _

To those campaigning for Clarice to pop up: All good things to those who wait, Dear Reader. She'll be along. 

To those who think I'm good at goo. Thank you. I'm not a romantic at heart, though – just a gore author who decided to try something different. Killing sprees are all well and good, you know, but I don't really want to be the Wes Craven of Hannibal fics. (Though I did get Samantha Bridges to include a severed head in her latest story.)

Dr. Hannibal Lecter awoke with a fuzzy grunt. It took him just a moment to remember where he was and what had happened to him. He was on a stretcher, being wheeled back to his room by a silent attendant. When he stirred, the attendant looked down at him and smiled pleasantly. 

"You're awake," the attendant said. "You feeling OK?" 

Dr. Lecter put his good hand on his forehead. "Yes…I suppose so." He looked around. He wasn't in recovery, so he must have woken up there and fallen back asleep. He could not recall being in the operating room or in recovery, but he knew that was not uncommon. It would come in time. For now, he had to plot his escape from the hospital. 

The attendant wheeled him back to his room and helped him get onto the bed. He shared the room with another man who lay in his own bed, watching TV desultorily. The room was small, with two beds on either side of the room. A small TV was bolted to the wall in front of each bed. The other man's was on, and he was watching football. Dr. Lecter's was off. 

The room had no door, and a glassed-in window all the way across one wall made it easy for the nurses to check in on their charges. Dr. Lecter thought of the suicide-watch cell back at the asylum and scowled. 

"Hey," the other patient grunted. "How you doin?" 

"I'm fine, thank you," Dr. Lecter said courteously. "And yourself?" 

The man shrugged. With one arm, Dr. Lecter noted: the other was bound in a sling across his chest. "All fine except for the shoulder." 

"What happened, if I may ask?" 

"Broke it. They put a steel pin in it to keep it in. How about you?" 

Dr. Lecter nodded. He held up his own heavily bandaged hand. "They reattached my thumb." 

The man's eyes widened. "Woah," he said. "You got your thumb chopped off?" 

"No," Dr. Lecter said, "I did it myself." 

"Accident, huh? That's a bitch." 

"Indeed," Dr. Lecter confirmed, and then looked at his hand. The hand was bandaged heavily. But he could see the tip of his thumb poking out of the white gauze shrouding his hand. The thumb itself was numb. He could feel nothing beyond the heel of his hand. That didn't surprise him. It would take time for the nerves to grow and re-attach. 

He probed his bandaged hand and discovered that there were aluminum splints holding his thumb on. The color of his thumb was better than it had been, but still pale. That was all right, too. He knew better than to expect his thumb would work immediately again. 

A nurse walked into the room and looked at him calmly. 

"Mr. Daum," she said gently, "please leave that be. Don't pick at it." 

"I'm just looking," Dr. Lecter said calmly. 

"Let your doctor do it. She'll be here in just a little while." 

"Very well," Dr. Lecter said with a sigh. 

"Are you hungry? I can get you something to eat." 

Dr. Lecter knew from his own experience about hospital food. "Thank you, but no."

"All right then. If you need anything, just give a holler." 

He lay back and thought about how he was going to get out of here. He could always sign out AMA, but that would leave a record. Better to simply melt into the crowd and escape. If only he didn't feel so groggy. He wasn't sure if he would be able to walk, let alone escape. 

So he lay in his bed for perhaps half an hour or so. His TV remained off. He had no real interest in football. His roommate tried to engage him in conversation a few times, but Dr. Lecter did not respond. 

Eventually, the man left him alone. His eyes closed and he did not move, but he was not asleep. He was back in his memory palace, reviewing what he knew about anesthesia and when it might wear off. 

He was drawn out of his palace by the sight of Erin Lander appearing in his doorway. She held a chart in one hand and looked diffident. She smiled when she saw him and crossed to his bedside. The curtain ran shut with a screech. Dr. Lecter winced. 

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Tired," Dr. Lecter said carefully. 

"That's the anesthesia. Your surgery went well. Let me look at your hand." 

Dr. Lecter handed over his bandaged hand without complaint. She undid the bandages, exposing the thumb. A black row of stitches marked the line where his thumb had been re-attached to his hand. 

"Did you do the procedure?" he asked gently. 

He saw her face light up with pride. "Yes, I did," she said. "It went fine. No complications. You should recover a lot of function. You'll need therapy, though." 

Dr. Lecter dropped his voice and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. 

"Erin," he said intensely, "I want you to bring me a set of surgical scrubs. Generally I take a large." 

Her mouth quirked and her eyebrow rose. "Scrubs? Why?" 

"To get out of here." 

She shook her head absently. "No. You can't. You need to stay here, let me take care of you." He could see rejection and hurt on her face and hated himself for it. But he'd be damned if the FBI tracked him here and found him lying dumbly in this bed. 

"No," he said. "I would like nothing better, but it cannot be. Just bring them here, I'll take care of the rest." 

"You need help," she implored. "Let me help you." 

"You already have, more than you know. And I thank you for it. But I will not be taken again." 

"You won't," she said. "You're under another name, no one will know."

He sighed. "The FBI is smarter than _that_, you know. And they may track me here. Now: bring me the scrubs, there's a good girl." 

He saw her chin wobble and knew what it meant. Although she had been afraid of him this morning – and still was – she did not want him to leave. Dr. Lecter did not need to be told that he doubtlessly had a plethora of emotional effects on his surgeon. Belatedly, he remembered that Erin Lander, like Clarice Starling, had lost her father as a girl. 

_How do I attract these women? _he wondered to himself. 

"Do it for me," he said. "Otherwise, I'll leave anyway and you'll never see me again. Do this for me, and you will." 

That got a reaction out of her, as he had suspected it would. He saw her eyes fill with tears and watched her blink them away resolutely. Her throat worked. He did not want to hurt her, but he said nothing, simply watched her stone-faced. 

She wouldn't refuse him. She _couldn't _refuse him. She closed her eyes, swallowed once, and nodded. 

"All right," she said in a toneless voice. 

She re-bandaged his hand. Her face was distant. 

"I'll be back to check on you in a bit," she said in a robotic, faraway tone, and pulled back the curtains. Her sneakered feet made little sound in the hallway. 

Dr. Lecter watched her depart and shook his head. He didn't want to hurt her. But priorities were priorities, and escaping from the hospital was priority. Besides, he tried to convince himself, it would all be worth it. 

"Nice, uh?" the man in the next bed asked. 

Dr. Lecter turned and tilted his head. "Excuse me?" 

"She's nice. Tight. YanowadImean?"

"She's quite pleasant," Dr. Lecter said calmly.

The man chuckled crudely. "Maybe, but that's not what I meant." 

Dr. Lecter had an idea where this was going, but he took a measured breath and asked, "Then what did you mean?" 

"You know. Pretty hot little doctor." The man chuckled lewdly. "Nice ya-ya's." 

Dr. Lecter had first learned English at age six from the British troops who had rescued him from his parents' estate in Lithuania. During his years in the United States, his accent had slowly been clipped away bit by bit to the eastern American norm. His normal speech contained just a shadow of what it had been. Except when he was angry. And he was angry now. 

"_Ya-ya's_?" he asked, drawing out the vowels in scorn.

"Yeah," the man said obliviously. "That blonde nursie has got bigger ones, but that doc is smaller, see? So they look bigger." He cackled unpleasantly and cupped his free hand up by his own pectorals to illustrate his point. 

"I see," Dr. Lecter said. "Tell me, were you ever acquainted with one I.J. Miggs?" 

The man gawped at him. "No. Why? Who's he?" 

"An acquaintance of mine. You remind me of him." 

The discussion shut off as efficiently as a light switch as Dr. Lander re-entered the room. Her eyes were dry and angry. They sparkled at Dr. Lecter like pools of bitter oil. She tossed a green bundle onto his bed and walked off without another word. Her anger at him was palpable. The hem of her lab coat flapped around her calves as she stalked down the hall. 

Dr. Lecter took them and sighed. She would come to understand. She would have to. In the meantime, he could only be truly sorry for any pain she suffered. He gathered up the scrubs and stuffed them under the paper gown. Gathering his IV pole, he headed off for the bathroom. 

The nurse watched him as he went. He did not seem to need help, so she allowed him the dignity of standing by unless he asked for it. Dr. Lecter understood that. Actually, he was suitably impressed with this staff, considering he was supposedly a homeless man who could not pay for the care he received. He decided that once he was away, he would send the Surgical Department a large but anonymous gift. 

In the bathroom, Dr. Lecter swiftly changed into the scrubs. He removed his IV from his hand and held a paper towel over it to stanch the bleeding. He knew he ought to leave immediately, but his shoes were in his room along with the horrid clothes, and he did not want even those horrid rags to fall into the hands of the FBI. 

Besides, he _had_ to do something about that fellow. 

In the room, the fellow squinted at him as Dr. Lecter took the green bag containing his belongings and put on his shoes. He unwrapped a scalpel blade and held it between the thumb and finger of his good hand. 

"You outa here?" he asked. 

"Yes," Dr. Lecter said. "My clothes were destroyed unfortunately. In the ER. So they gave me these." 

"Me too," the man said. "Outa here, I mean. Soon as they get off their butts and sign my paperwork." 

Dr. Lecter did not know that, so he hopped into bed and hurriedly put on his gown to cover the scrub shirt. He did not want to miss a chance to teach this man a lesson for his rudeness. After another twenty minutes or so, a nurse came in, removed the man's IV, and told him he was free to go. The man got his things and changed. Dr. Lecter turned away courteously while he did so.

"Well, catch ya later," the man said, and waved goodbye. Dr. Lecter counted to twenty before getting up, removing his gown, and following. 

He turned and exited into the hall. He strode past the nurses's station with his head turned the other way as if examining the walls to ensure they would not collapse. Then he was at the elevators. One binged and disgorged several passengers. Dr. Lecter got onto the elevator and rode down to the lobby. 

As the door closed, he saw a small, resolute figure standing against the far wall with her arms crossed, glaring at him. 

Ah well. In time, she would understand. 

In the parking garage, Dr. Lecter caught up with his erstwhile roommate. The man only started to turn when Dr. Lecter's arm slipped around his throat. He was large and strong, but even the strongest man needs oxygen, and Dr. Lecter throttled him unconscious within seconds. He was bulky enough to give Dr. Lecter a bit of pause in getting him to the ground one-handed, but he managed. 

Dr. Lecter pried the man's mouth open and stuck his bandaged hand in. A blast of bad breath struck him and he winced with distaste. Firmly, he gripped the man's tongue and pulled. It was slippery and not terribly pleasant, but Dr. Lecter was determined. Eventually, he had the tongue fully extended and as far out of the mouth as it would go.

The scalpel blade was small but quite sharp. It sank into the pink meat of the tongue quite easily. Even without the aid of a scalpel handle, Dr. Lecter was able to cut through the thickness of the tongue without too much difficulty. The blood flow was immediate, but that was what scrubs were for, after all. He toyed with the idea of bringing the tongue back to her apartment to cook it, but decided against it. After all, tongue was rather unappetizing. So once he had severed the tongue completely, Dr. Lecter threw it over the concrete wall of the parking garage and watched it plummet to the ground three floors below. It landed on the access road and rolled into the gutter. Dr. Lecter found that quite fitting. 

He dragged the man behind a large Ford Explorer and left him there without a second thought. He would comment on the ya-ya's of no more medical professionals. Fortunately, the man did not move. Dr. Lecter thought this a more fitting punishment than death.

Dr. Lecter got his Jeep out of the parking garage and headed out of the city. An hour's drive down the Interstate provided him with plenty of rural area in which he could dispose of the Cherokee's prior owner, whose odor was becoming objectionable. Then he turned around and drove back into the city. 

Shopping was something Dr. Lecter liked very much to do. At a rest stop, he was fortunate to find a Yellow Pages that had not been vandalized. It was tied down with a cable, but Dr. Lecter was able to detach it with a wrench he found in the Cherokee. Then he headed back to the city. The Yellow Pages served to provide him with the locations for what he sought. A local department store provided him with clothing and cookware. A hardware store provided him with a few other tools he wanted. And a locksmith supply store provided him with some real lockpicks. A large grocery store in a wealthy suburb provided him with a selection of food that met his discriminating tastes. Finally, a medical supply store provided him with what he would need to care for his hand. 

He returned to Erin's apartment a few hours later. There were many locks on her door, but a bit of patience with his picks let him in. The apartment soon filled with the smell of cooking meat. Dr. Lecter found cooking a very enjoyable experience and was able to lose himself as he prepared the meal. He did not like the stove, as he believed firmly that gas stoves were superior. Nonetheless, it was sufficient. 

It was dark by the time Erin returned. Dr. Lecter had expected this. Residents pulled long hours. Her key scratched in the door. Dr. Lecter turned as she approached. She stared blankly at him as the door slid shut unnoticed. Anger, hurt, happiness, gratitude, and wariness carried out a brief battle across the planes of her face. 

"Good evening," Dr. Lecter said courteously. "Won't you sit down? Dinner is ready." He had changed back to his suit, which thankfully was not bloodstained. He sported one of the new ties he had bought, a bright red tie with He indicated her table, which was covered with a white damask tablecloth and set for two places. Two candles burned in the center of the table on silver candlesticks. A bottle of wine stood chummily by a large dish on which two rare steaks lay. 

She stood for a moment silently, a tired woman in wrinkled surgical scrubs. She took in the elegance he had brought to her apartment. Her eyes flitted over the tablecloth, the steaks, the candles, then back to him. It was several moments before she spoke. When she did, he saw the gleam of unshed tears in her eyes.

"You came back," she said simply. 

"Of course I did," Dr. Lecter answered, and smiled. 


	5. Looking Up

            _Author's note:_

_                First off, Dear Reader – OK, OK, by popular demand, here's Clarice.  She didn't show up until Chapter 11 of this fic's predecessor.  But here she is._

_                Secondly, I am aware that Clarice's memory of her dinner with Dr. Lecter wavers a bit between book and movie canon.  While I am usually a canon devotee – it worked best this way.  _

_                Finally, an interesting movie factoid from the IMDB.  Apparently, the man-eating hogs that Verger intended to use to eat Dr. Lecter were chosen out of 6,000 other hogs and came from a hog farm in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Ridley Scott picked them out himself.  I live not far from the border and have friends in Canada, it's a nice place.  Frankly, I never would have guessed man-eating hogs to be the sort of thing Canada would produce, let alone export, but there you go._

_                With that little educational tidbit, on with the show._

            Hannibal Lecter spent the day after his escape from Chesapeake in the hospital.  So did the other two people who had been in the house.  Paul Krendler and Clarice Starling had both been taken to Maryland-Misericordia Hospital in Baltimore.  There were closer, smaller hospitals, but Maryland-Misericordia was deemed the only one capable of treating a patient whose skull had been opened.  The ICU staff did as best they could for Paul Krendler, but amongst themselves they asked where the missing parts of his brain were.  The staff conjectured a few guesses amongst themselves.  A large black male LPN took one look, sighed deeply, and won the grisly office pool.  No one asked how he guessed that the missing frontal lobe had been eaten, and he did not volunteer.

                Krendler was far from an easy patient to deal with, and the staff was obliged to restrain him, as he kept attempting to get out of bed and raved about anything in his immediate vision.  At 3:00 in the morning after his admission, Paul Krendler soiled his bed and then died in the throes of a massive seizure, saliva spewing from his lips.  He was wheeled down to the morgue and put in a body bag there to await the tender mercies of the coroner.  None of the staff was terribly surprised or sorry to see him go.

                Clarice Starling, however, was in much better shape and received much less intrusive care.  She sat on a gurney in the ER as a young resident scanned her eyes with a penlight.  

                "How're you feeling?" the resident asked.  

                Clarice worked her jaw.  She could think and reason, to a point, unlike her former co-worker.  But focusing required her active attention, and she had to really focus to hide her feelings.  The drugs had rendered the concept of impulse control a much more difficult thing to grasp than before.

                "All right, I guess.  Kind of spinny."  

                "What drugs have you had?" The resident's voice was jocular and calm.  

                "I don't know," Clarice admitted.

                "Lemme guess. A friend gave them to you and didn't tell you what they were but that it would be fun." The young resident's sarcastic tone indicated he'd heard the story a thousand times before.  Clarice noticed a small patch on his jaw where he had missed shaving.  Unable to control herself, she reached out and touched it.  The resident stared at her for a moment but said nothing.  

                "Something like that, I guess," Clarice said.  

                A nurse walked in and handed the resident a sheet of yellow paper.  The resident looked at it and raised his eyebrows.  

                "Well, Miss Starling, looks like you had a pretty fun night," the resident said.  

                Clarice closed her eyes and thought.  _Fun.  Yeah, that's the word.  Dinner with Dr. Lecter and Krendler, I got to see Krendler eat his own brain, then ended up confined to the refrigerator by my hair, and thought Dr. Lecter was going to chop off my hand.  That's fun all right.  _

_                Her tongue itched to speak those words.  She thought vaguely that she shouldn't, not to a civilian.  _

                "Fun," she said confusedly.  

                "Looks like we have some morphine in your system, some Valium, some hallucinogens…not even sure what _this is here…basically put, Miss Starling, it's a minor miracle you can still form syllables.  And somebody you know knows his drugs."  _

                Starling fought the brief but strong urge to yell out _Ba-ba-ba-ba at the top of her lungs like a toddler to prove her syllable skills. She blinked blearily at the young resident.  Her hands were trembling.  She could make them stop for short periods, but as soon as her attention wandered to something else, they would start trembling again.  Everything in the hospital seemed so bright, ugly fluorescent light.  Clarice squinted her eyes.  _

                "So what happens now?" she asked. 

                "We admit you for detox and see how you are in the morning." 

                "_Detox? No, wait…I'm not a druggie.  I'm an FBI agent." _

                "Detox.  At least overnight.  And I know you're an FBI agent.  Your boss called here.  Doesn't change your bloodwork." 

                "Crawford?" she asked instantly.  

                The resident shook his head.  "No, that wasn't it." 

                "Pearsall?"  

                "That sounds like it.  And he said he'll be by to check on you and Krendler in the morning."  

                Clarice remembered something about being on suspension, but it was slow and thick in coming.  A wave of childish resentment rose up in her.  The phrase _Swear me and you swear too floated to the top of her brain.  She wasn't sure, but she had the very firm idea that it didn't apply anymore._

                A nurse came down to escort her up to the ward.  Starling sighed.  But if Pearsall was going to be there in the morning, she had better be there.  As she left the ER to head up to the detox ward, she saw a uniformed cop with his back to her, his arms crossed over his chest, as he talked to a nurse.  Starling's eyes went automatically to the holstered pistol on his belt.  She could grab it, clear the holster, and take them all out, the nurse, the cop, the resident who treated her, everybody. 

                But the nurse escorted her past the cop swiftly and her chance was gone.  Starling did not say anything on the elevator ride up.  At the desk on the ward, Starling was asked for some information to fill out her admission form.  She wondered if she should put the FBI as her employer or put 'none'.  

_                Screams issued from the rooms in which drug addicts were battling their own demons.  Clarice flinched a bit to hear them.  The ward was secure, with the patients denied whatever privacy patients usually got.  The floor was dingy institutional gray linoleum.   It reminded her far too much of the maximum-security dungeon at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Clinically Insane.  _

                "I don't belong here," she muttered.  

                The nurse smiled a big fake plastic smile.  Starling wished for her .45.  

                "Let's just try to get some sleep," the nurse suggested.  She steered Clarice through the hall to an empty room.  It was small and possessed only one bed.  There was no window, only blank gray walls.  Here, Clarice was made to surrender the black dress in exchange for a paper gown which gapped open at the back. As a special bonus, she received an IV needle in the back of her left hand.  She frowned.  _Just what I need.  On display and on a leash.  They must put patients in these gowns so they can't leave without paying the bill._

                There wasn't much else to do, so Starling did what she was expected to do.  She climbed into bed and stared up at the ceiling.  Someone in the next room was banging on the door and pleading for something.  Probably heroin, Starling decided.  If she'd had some, she would have given it to him gladly so he would shut up.  She glanced at the door, which was still open.  A long yellow oblong of fluorescent light gleamed in from the hallway.  

                _At least they didn't lock me in.  That's something.  _

_                Clarice bunched up her pillow and tried to wedge it over her head in order to block the pounding and the screams.  It didn't work terribly well.  Despite herself, she wished for Dr. Lecter.  He probably had all sorts of useful tips on how to ignore screaming madmen.  He'd done it long enough.  __He's still out there.  I have to find him.  _

                A doctor came by just long enough to smile at her and give her a sedative.  He introduced himself and Starling forgot his name promptly.  But the sedative did its job, and she was asleep within minutes.  The lambs did not scream for her that night, and her ears were mute to the screams of the junkies.  

                In the morning, Starling felt much better.  She asked for and got a trip to the bathroom.  She was offered breakfast and took it.  Cereal and eggs, the eggs oddly tasteless, as if some vampire in the kitchen had sucked them free of taste and left merely yellow gooey nutrients. The staff seemed to be aware that she wasn't here for heroin or cocaine; just an exotic choice of pharmaceuticals delivered by a Board-certified, brilliant, and highly dangerous psychiatrist.  She was allowed into the dayroom to watch TV.   Her doctor found her there and demanded the sacrifice of a vial of her blood.  Starling sighed and handed over her arm without complaint.  She returned to her TV desultorily.

                Around eleven that morning, a man in a suit came onto the ward.  He walked into the dayroom and sat down next to Starling.  She looked at him with no surprise.  

                "Agent Pearsall," she said.  

                "Hi, Starling."  He smiled pleasantly.  "How you feeling?" 

                "Better," Starling allowed.  "How's Krendler?" 

                "Krendler died last night." 

                "I'm sorry to hear that," Starling said.  Her tone made it obvious that she wasn't.  

                Pearsall leaned forward.  

                "Starling, listen up.  We found a receipt in Verger's office.  We know you didn't place that ad.  Verger did.  Plus, with both Verger and Krendler dead, there's not enough to bring you before OPR on." 

                Starling considered for a moment. This was good news.  It meant reinstatement.  A return to the fold.   Perhaps she wouldn't be welcomed back with open arms, but she would be allowed back.  Or was it good news?  Did she really want to go back to the FBI?  

                "I see," Starling said archly. 

                "We didn't know, Starling.  We had to go on what we had." 

                "I know," she said in a tone bereft of forgiveness. 

                "Listen, Starling.  Now is your time.  People feel guilty.  Take advantage of it." 

                "Are you going to reinstate me?" she asked directly.  She crossed her arms over her chest.   

                "Hearing is scheduled for day after tomorrow.  Since Krendler's dead and the complaint had his name on it, should be a cakewalk. I'm going to spring you from this nuthatch if the doctors say you can go."  He held up a small nylon bag.  "We've got your dress down at Quantico. Mapp gave me some clothes for you.  Go get changed and be nice to the doctors."  

                Starling took the bag and retreated to her room.  The slacks and denim shirt were a definite plus over the butt-baring paper gown.  The IV was a pain, but the sleeves were wide enough that she was able to get the tube running up the sleeve and out her collar, as if it was dripping directly into her jugular.  

                That didn't bother her.  Something else did, and it took her a moment to figure it out.  She missed the comforting weight of the big .45 on her hip.  Well, that would just have to wait until she got reinstated.   She returned to the dayroom, raising a few eyebrows in normal clothing but with the IV still attached, and sat down across from Pearsall. 

                "So what's new on Lecter?  Anything?" she asked. 

                Clint Pearsall sighed.  The past several hours had been stressful.  First Krendler with his brain missing…and suspicious stains on his teeth.  Then Starling, drugged and befuddled.  Then the discovery of the receipt clearing Starling.  Then Krendler's late-night death.  He hadn't slept at all last night.  

                "You're still on administrative leave until your hearing," he said. 

                "I thought I was cleared," she said sharply.  

                "Not much on Lecter.  We do know of a plane theft that occurred at a little municipal airport about twenty minutes away from the house." 

                Starling leaned forward intently.  "Plane theft?" 

                "Yeah.  A little Piper Cub.  You know, puddle-jumper.  Can Lecter fly a plane?" 

                Starling considered.  A night's sleep had filtered most of the drugs from her system and her recall was much quicker than it had been the night before.  

                "There's nothing in the file about it," she said ruminatively.  "He never had a pilot's license.  But it wouldn't surprise me if he could."  She let out a bitter chuckle.  "Dr. Lecter is a multitalented man.  I'd want to look at flight schools that have been around for a while, see if maybe he took some lessons before his incarceration." 

                "He certainly is.  Look, let me take you home.  Take a couple of days, Starling.  We still don't know what Lecter did with your head." 

                _We know what he did with **Krendler's****, Clarice Starling thought with some satisfaction.  **_

                "I feel fine, sir," she said.  "With respect, I'd like to come back and see what I can do." 

                Clint Pearsall sucked his cheek into his mouth and chewed on it while he thought.  The effect was not lovely to watch.  But Starling knew it was a good sign.  Legally, he was supposed to say no right off.  While she was on suspension, she was Joe Blow, not an FBI agent.  

                "I'll have to talk to higher authority," he said calmly.  "Make you a deal.  Go home.  Get some rest and some chicken soup.  If I get the OK, I'll call you." 

                Her doctor stuck his head in the room.  "Miss Starling?" he called.  

                Clarice dutifully came when called.  The doctor waved a yellow sheet at her.  

                "Your bloodwork looks good.  How are you feeling?"  

                "Better after a night's sleep," she said.  

                "Then you can go home," he nodded.  He pulled the IV needle out of her arm and taped a piece of gauze across the wound.  "Just see the nurse when you leave, they have some documents for you to sign." 

                Feeling as if she was being granted bail, Starling went and dutifully signed her name to the documents. They stated that she had, in fact, been treated in the detox center, had in fact spent the night there, and was, in the opinion of her esteemed physicians, fit to re-enter society.  She solemnly attested that she had been given post-discharge instructions and would follow them with slavish devotion. Whatever it took.  

                Finally, she was allowed to go.  Pearsall's car was a Buick, oddly bland and without personality.  She wondered where her own car was.  Probably back at the scene or in the impound lot.  She'd have to get it out.  Starling watched the scenery and did not speak on the drive home.  

                "Starling, don't be mad. You know the procedures," Pearsall said, and she could tell that he was honestly sorry for what had happened.  

                "I'm not, sir," she answered.  "Just…thinking." 

                Silence reigned for the rest of the ride to Starling's duplex.  Mapp was there, and immediately decided that Clarice was in desperate need of spicy chicken.  Ever prepared, Mapp had some handy which she proceeded to serve out in large quantities.   The chicken was actually quite tasty, and Starling liked it a lot.  However, Ardelia had apparently misestimated the capacity of her stomach by an order of magnitude.  If she ate everything Mapp wanted her to eat, she'd rupture something.  While Clarice ate, Ardelia demanded and got the story of what had happened out at the lake house.  

                "You mean you ate Krendler's _brain?" Ardelia demanded. _

                "Mm-hmm," Starling mumbled through a mouthful of chicken.  

                "Jesus," Ardelia looked away.  "He didn't hurt you, did he?" 

                Starling swallowed.  "Nope," she said, and held up her hands.  "Put my hair in the fridge and broke off the handle.  That's it.  He chopped off his own thumb, not mine."  

                "He didn't…do anything else to you, did he?" 

                Starling paused and poured herself a glass of inexpensive but tasty red wine.  "He kissed me," she admitted.  "When he had me on the fridge." 

                "Nothing else?" 

                Clarice snorted.  "No, nothing else."  

                There was an unspoken tension in the air.  In order to break it, Ardelia returned to Krendler.  

                "I can't believe you ate Krendler's brain," she said. 

                "It wasn't by choice, believe you me," Clarice said in her own defense.   "And it wasn't just me, you know.  Lecter ate some and so did he." 

                "Lecter made him eat his _own brain?"  Ardelia seemed even more aghast at the idea.   Clarice wondered internally why eating your own brain would be worse than eating someone else's.  On a moral scale they seemed to be rather equivalent to her._

                Even though she was recovered from the influence of Dr. Lecter's drugs, the idea did not seem horrible to Clarice at all.  She could remember it clearly.  Krendler's brain reddish above his truncated skull.  The top of his skull and hair on the table next to other wrappers and things to be discarded.  Dr. Lecter's silver fork digging into the lobes.  Krendler taking a piece off the proffered fork, commenting that it tasted great.  

                She could recall it as easily as she could recall her father's face, and none of it bothered her in the slightest.  It was no more horrifying than memories of being on Hannah's broad back during her childhood.  The horror Ardelia was experiencing from hearing the tale secondhand slipped from Clarice's mind like oil from water.  She could see the reaction on her friend's face and felt sympathy for Ardelia over it, but she simply could not share in the horror herself.  Not over Krendler.

                "Yep," she said.  

                "Good God," Ardelia managed.  "That's…I don't know.  Horrible.  You ought to talk to a counselor." 

                "Nah, I'm okay," Clarice said indifferently.  "I've got training in psychology myself, 'Delia.  I don't need a shrink." 

                "Clarice, you ended up being held hostage by Dr. Lecter.  And he made you watch while he cooked Krendler's brain.  And then you _ate_ some of it?"  Clarice got the idea she was speaking more for herself than asking.  Ardelia shook her head.  Her face had horror writ large on it, her eyes blank as she tried to imagine what had happened.

                "I'm OK," Clarice pointed out.  "It's not a problem for me.  C'mon, Ardelia.  I'm just happy to be alive and in one piece, that's what it is.  And they're gonna reinstate me." 

                "Clarice," Ardelia said, staring at her as if she was crazy, "I mean, Krendler was a big asshole, don't get me wrong, but did he really deserve to die like that?  And it doesn't seem to bother you at all." 

                Clarice shrugged.  If Krendler was a lamb, he was a lamb that she would be willing to give up to the slaughterhouse any day of the week.  She didn't blame Ardelia.  It was a good thing Ardelia had gone into the FBI, she thought.  She could be such a bleeding-heart liberal on some things.  Everybody has rights, bla bla bla.  Her own social conscience was markedly secondary to the job.  Clarice shuddered to think what would happen if Ardelia had been a criminal defense attorney.  She'd have gotten people to feel sorry for Dr. Lecter.

                "Dr. Lecter thought so," she said.  "And he didn't die.  That was at the hospital after I fell asleep.  I was drugged, Ardelia.  I'd have helped him if I could.  It wasn't my fault."

                The words seemed like the truth as she spoke them, but in her heart she knew it was not true.  She had tried to attack Dr. Lecter.  She had handcuffed herself to him.  But for Krendler himself, she had done not a thing.  It was easy to tell herself that Lecter would have stopped her if she had tried.  It was easy to blame it on the drugs.  But none of it was true.  

                She'd stood by and watched while Hannibal Lecter lobotomized Paul Krendler.  She could have tried to stop him.  She could have pleaded for Krendler.  But she hadn't.  She'd simply sat there and watched.

                What was more, she felt not an ounce of guilt over it.  Dr. Lecter had once told her she judged herself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave.  But on the subject of Krendler, she simply felt nothing. No guilt, no horror, and no urge to save him.  Krendler's death had all the moral weight of deciding whether or not to sharpen a pencil.   

                _We're more alike than we think, Clarice, Hannibal Lecter whispered from the back of her mind.  _

                Clarice leaned forward and put her hand on Ardelia's arm.  She smiled tenderly, as if Ardelia had been the one through hell in the past few days.  She took a deep breath. 

                "'Delia," she said in a voice both resolute and kind, "I appreciate you being worried about me.  I really do. But I'm okay.  Really.  Some horrible things happened, that's for goddam sure.  But don't worry.  I'm going back to work and I'm going to get Lecter.  But don't get all up in arms about me.  I'm alive, I'm safe, and I'm here to fight another day.  Isn't that what matters?"  

                Ardelia nodded. "I know, you're right.  I just…I can't believe you just bounce back like nothing's happened."  

                Clarice shrugged.  "Might seem weird, but you know, Evelda was worse.  That was something I was all there for.  And I got by.  I'll get by this too."  She paused. In the forefront of her brain, her father spoke up angrily. _Clarice Starling, you know better than t'say what you're about to.  __Starlings don't lie.  _

                Clarice kept up her smile for Ardelia's sake. For the first time in her life she did not immediately comply with the voice's demands.

                 _Sometimes you have to, daddy._

"I'm sorry about Krendler, he didn't deserve that.  But I couldn't do anything to help him."  
                 

                

…

                "Sit down," Hannibal Lecter said, as if she was the guest.  "You needn't change.  I was a resident once, I know how it is." 

                "No, wait," Erin Lander said. "I can at least put on a skirt."  She surveyed the table, more elegant now than it had ever been.  She disappeared into her bedroom.  Dr. Lecter could hear her opening drawers.  She returned perhaps fifteen minutes later, in a knee-length black skirt and a white silk blouse.  She looked shy and ill at ease.  _Probably her only dress clothes, Dr. Lecter thought.  He could smell the creamy, spicy aroma of her perfume.  Freshly applied, he noted.  _

                "You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble," she said, eying the table. 

                "I wanted to," he answered gently.  

                The _déjà vu was palpable.  She looked at the large steaks on the plate suspiciously.  _

                "What are we eating?" she asked.  Her one hand flitted to behind her back, covering one kidney protectively.  Dr. Lecter did not think she was aware she was doing it.  He smiled pleasantly. 

                "Filet mignon," he said.  "Quite rare.  I do hope you like rare meat." 

                She nodded absently.  "No _sautés reins?"  she said with just a bit of suspicion.  _

                Dr. Lecter grinned.  "You remember.  I'm touched.   No, one cannot eat…exotic food all the time.  This is nothing more than steak.  The best cut, of course, but just steak."

                They sat down at the table and began to eat.  Dr. Lecter poured the wine with his good hand.  Over dinner, she ran down his procedure with him.  Dr. Lecter found it quite interesting, and had to admit that her surgical knowledge outweighed his own.  Then again, he reflected, reattaching something back _onto someone was a practice he had never engaged in personally.  The steak was quite good, even if Dr. Lecter said so himself.  It was nicely soft and cool and red in the middle.  Erin complimented it extravagantly._

                He asked about her other work that day, and she discussed that with him too.  His surgery had been the highlight of her day:  other than that she had done an appendectomy herself and observed a gunshot wound repair.  All in a day's work in an urban trauma center.  

                She sipped her wine and her mouth quirked.  

                "We had some excitement in the parking garage, apparently," she said in a voice that made it eminently clear to Dr. Lecter what she meant.  

                Dr. Lecter swallowed his mouthful of steak.  He raised his eyebrows as if surprised.  

                "Really?  What happened?" he said attentively.  

                "Apparently someone was attacked," she said.  "Their tongue was completely excised from their mouth."  

                "How awful," Dr. Lecter said ruminatively.  "Why didn't you reattach it for them?"  He held up his thumb as if to point out that this was in within her capabilities.  

                "Well…," she said, noting his amusement.   "I've never reattached a tongue before.  It's possible, but it's very rare."  She tilted her head and eyed him with mock sternness as she forked another piece of rare steak into her mouth.  

                "I'm sure whoever did such a thing had a good reason for it," Dr. Lecter assured her.   

                "The _other reason we could not reattach the tongue is because it ended up in the gutter of the parking garage.  By the time they got it out, we couldn't reattach it."  Her nose wrinkled.  "It was dirty and had gotten pretty mauled."  _

                "When your tongue comes from the gutter," Dr. Lecter said primly, "it will find its way back." 

                "Would you happen to know anything?"  Her eyes sparkled at him with gallows humor.  "Did you see anything while you were fleeing my care at the hospital?" 

                "I wasn't fleeing _you, Erin.  Merely the physical custody of the hospital."  He smiled pleasantly.  "And I didn't see anything." _

                "I was just curious," she asked, "because the man turned out to have shared a room with you." 

                "Was that the fellow?  He made rude comments about the staff.  I'm not surprised this happened to him." 

                That surprised her.  "Comments?" 

                "He commented on some of the physical attributes of you and your staff," Dr. Lecter said by way of defense.  "I didn't think it was appropriate." 

                Erin knew that was all the confession she was going to get.  She smiled pleasantly.  Part of her was troubled at the thought of Dr. Lecter slicing out someone's tongue, but part of her found it pleasing that he had done such a thing for her.  Defended her honor.  

                After dinner, Dr. Lecter would have enjoyed the chance to play the piano, but Erin Lander's one-bedroom apartment did not allow for such things.  Besides, he doubted she would have let him.  A CD of Bach as played by the Baltimore Philharmonic was an acceptable substitute.  She checked the thumb calmly and then handed him an orange pill vial as violins danced light in the air. 

                "What is this?" he asked. 

                "Antibiotics," she answered promptly.  

                Dr. Lecter checked the pills.  They were exactly that.  

                "Where did you get them without a prescription?" 

                "From the drug lockup.  Where else?  I have some Vicodin too, in the bathroom if you want it." 

                Dr. Lecter's hand was indeed throbbing a bit, but he was quite able to ignore it if he chose.  "Thank you, but I'm all right."  

                "I can give you a prescription for antibiotics," she offered.  "Just tell me what name you want." 

                Dr. Lecter considered.  _Good thing it's me she's like this for, he thought.  __Someone else might take advantage of her.  _

_                "In the morning, please," he said.  "I'll need to get a few things before I have a proper name to give you." _

                He closed his eyes then and sat down on the couch.  Briefly, he wondered whatever had happened to the President of the Baltimore Philharmonic.  Not whoever was President now, the fellow who had been President when Dr. Lecter gave his famous dinner for the board of that esteemed body.  The meal hadn't seemed to bother him overmuch at the time, but once he'd found that it contained the sweetbreads of the former first flautist, the man had simply fallen right apart.   In a treatment center somewhere, Dr. Lecter believed.  

                He was aware of Erin Lander sitting next to him on the couch, enjoying the music.  Classical was something he had taught her about back when she had been his charge.  From her CD collection he could tell that the taste had stuck.  Neither spoke as cellos and horns filled the small apartment.  Neither one wanted to interrupt the music.  For Dr. Lecter, listening to music was something he treasured more than the average person.  Years of only having music in his memory palace made him appreciate the real thing more.

                When the CD finally finished, Dr. Lecter realized that they would probably need to sleep.  She would, at least.  She had to be up early for morning rounds.  And he was tired himself from the anesthesia.  

                "We ought to go to sleep," he murmured.  

                She nodded.  "Let me just get a blanket and sheet," she said.  

                Dr. Lecter tilted his head curiously.     

                "To make up the couch," she explained.  

                "I see." He rose courteously.  "An extra pillow, if you please."  Years of one tiny, flat jail pillow had also left its mark on Dr. Lecter.  

                "What?"  She stopped and gave him a puzzled look.  "No, Dr. Lecter, I'll take the couch.  You're my guest." 

                "Nonsense," Dr. Lecter said.  "I do not wish to impose.  It's fine." 

                They argued back and forth politely for a few minutes.  Dr. Lecter privately found it amusing.  Was this not the sort of thing courtesy was supposed to avoid? 

                Erin finally broke the impasse with an unexpected turn. 

                "We could share the bed, I guess.  It's big enough." 

                Dr. Lecter crossed around and glanced into the bedroom door.  Her bed was indeed larger than he would have expected for a single woman.  Then again, a comfortable bed for a resident was a necessity, not a luxury.  He turned back and watched her smile nervously and tremble at him, expecting to be turned down. 

                "All right," he said calmly.  "I suppose we're both adults."  

                He allowed her to turn down the bed and change first.  He put the scrub pants back on – unfortunately, the shirt was too bloody – and hung up his suit carefully on one of the new wooden hangers he had purchased that afternoon.  The bed was quite comfortable, he thought. The sheets were cool and pleasant against his skin.   On the other side, Erin eyed him carefully and tugged on the hem of her nightgown. 

                _There's a cannibal in my bed.  There's a cannibal in my bed, _she thought.  He seemed to sense her gaze and opened his eyes.  In the dim light, they reflected redly at her.  She rolled over and crammed a fist into her mouth.  Her heart raced.  Dr. Hannibal Lecter, serial killer and cannibal, lately of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, was lying next to her in her own bed. 

                Erin Lander was not a psychiatrist and had not yet looked into the whirlpool of emotions that Dr. Lecter evoked in her.  Before, when he had simply been a figure in the back of her mind, it had been buried, a hidden pool under the groundlayer of her normal, busy life.  Now that he was here, in the flesh, (_and in my bed, right here in my bed,_ her mind gibbered), the groundlayer had given way and the pool burst under pressure.  Then again, how _was_ she supposed to feel towards a man who replaced her failed kidneys and then fed her the old ones?  

                There was gratitude and respect in the mix, certainly.  Counterpointing it was no small amount of fear and terror.  Below those main elements were feelings she did not want to acknowledge and ignored as best she was able.  Sometimes they overwhelmed her, as they had in the ER, but she did her best to keep them down.  Dr. Lecter was being a perfect gentleman on his side of things; she should try to mimic him.  But it wasn't easy: not when he had the ability to make her heart race and her palms sweat with a single glance.  This time, there were no psychotropic drugs to fence her off from her emotions.  

                Next to her, Dr. Lecter shifted.  Erin shivered.

                _Like I'm gonna get any sleep **now**._  

                 She could feel his breath, calm and warm, on the back of her neck.  For a moment, she thought she should roll over.  After all, did she really want to be that vulnerable around Hannibal Lecter?  

                But then it occurred to her that she was already quite vulnerable to him no matter what position her body took.  Fear…terror…respect…gratitude…love?  It didn't matter whether it was one or all:  all she knew was that he made her heart sing and race at the same time.  She could feel the warmth of his body, the _heat _of his body, and realized he was closer than he was before.  She flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling.  

                _Go to sleep_, she told herself, but her body would no more obey that command than it would grow a third arm.  She watched the lattice-pattern of moonlight from the window projected onto the ceiling and wall.  Her hands bunched into nervous fists.

                Then there was the rasp of a body moving beneath the blanket, and Dr. Lecter's head rose above hers in the faint moonlight.  Erin gasped.  Then his mouth was on hers, his sleek head blotting out the light, and his hands were on her body.  And then Dr. Erin Lander could think no more and surrendered to the moment. 


	6. Reinstatement

_Author's note:  Just for all you Clarice-a-holics, here's Chapter 6 – All Clarice, All the time.  Not much goo in this chapter, but you know, the human pancreas can only take so much sugary goo before shutting down.  Now the pancreas and thymus are collectively known to gourmets as the sweetbreads.  And I'm sure you'd much rather have them in your body rather than served to the Board of the Baltimore Philharmonic with green oysters and Chateau d'Yquem.._

_Anyhoo, there will be plenty of goo in upcoming chapters.    For now, here's Clarice._

Clarice Starling sat at the table, feeling rather like a defendant in the dock.  The other people in the room were all men.  _Gray men_, she thought.  For they were.  Gray hair, gray suits, and a gray look about them.  They would not disclose anything they did not have to.  They sat in judgment, reducing a person's life and career to the contents of a single manila folder.   

Some of these men Clarice could have respect for:  they had done the job before being elevated to their current lofty position.  Others were simply DOJ stooges, men who had never even aimed a gun at another human being, let alone had to fire it and live with themselves after.  She sat in front of them, unrepentant and unbowed.  For today, the gray men would have to take back what had been done to her.  

Or take back as much as they could. 

                "All right," one of them said.  "We can get started." 

                Clint Pearsall sat next to Clarice in the manner of a defense attorney.  He stood up and cleared his throat.  

                "This is a reinstatement hearing for Special Agent Clarice M. Starling," he said.  "A week ago, Agent Starling was accused of placing an ad in the Italian papers to advise Dr. Hannibal Lecter that he was being watched.  We have since discovered evidence that this article was placed by a third party."  

                One of the men coughed.  "Who placed it, then?" 

                Pearsall handed over a piece of paper.  "This receipt was found in Mason Verger's office.  His sister permitted a routine search after his death."  

                Another man harrumphed and held out his hand for it.  Clarice watched him coldly, noticing that he seemed to look the same as the men on either side of him, even down to the mid-priced gray pinstripe of his suit.  Was there a cloning farm somewhere where they churned out men like these? 

                "Why would Verger place an ad framing you, Agent Starling?"  the man asked her.  

                Starling rose and gave the clone a direct look.  "Mr. Verger was seeking revenge against Dr. Lecter," she explained.  "He believed that he could break me, put me in distress so that Dr. Lecter would seek me out." 

                "Mr. Verger is a civilian," the gray man observed.  "How could he do this?" 

                "He had allies in the Department of Justice," Clarice answered in a steady voice.  She was curious to see: these men couldn't _not_ have known about Krendler.  They had to.  The question was, would they risk having it exposed?

                "I see," the man said, dropping the subject like a distasteful piece of garbage.

                "What can you tell us about the death of Deputy Assistant General Paul Krendler?" 

                Clarice paused.  She knew where this was going:  if she would agree that Krendler was a great old guy, they would probably reinstate her.  Although office politics was something she despised with a passion, she wanted her damn badge and gun back.  So she would play along.  But she wouldn't praise Krendler, she decided.  Just tell them the truth. 

                "After capturing Dr. Lecter at Muskrat Farm," she said carefully, "I was struck by a tranquilizer dart fired by one of the men in Mason Verger's employ.  Dr. Lecter brought me out and captured Deputy Krendler.  He removed the top of Mr. Krendler's skull and cooked his brain." 

                "Were you _there?_" 

                "Yes, sir, I was.  I was unable to assist Mr. Krendler, however.  Dr. Lecter administered drugs to me.  I do have the results from the hospital indicating that, sir."  She held up a file from her own briefcase.  Pearsall took it and handed it out to the men.  

                The gray men did not seem to know what to make of this.  Clarice expressed no regret over Krendler, but she hadn't killed him.  And the very idea of cooking a man's brain and then feeding it to him did not exactly fit into their world terribly well.  These were the same men who would grill you for killing someone pointing a MAC-10 at you. 

                A few other gray men expressed shock and horror at what Clarice had gone through.  One even inquired if she was seeking out counseling.  Clarice cleared her throat.  

                "No, sir, I am not."  

                "Well, Agent Starling," the man said, adjusting his glasses, "perhaps you should."  Clarice glanced down at her notes.  This was one of the Section Chiefs, a man who had actually been in the field once.  

                "Agent Starling," he said in a voice not completely without sympathy, "we routinely expect agents who have had to kill in the line of duty to see counselors.  That doesn't even come close to having a front-row seat to someone cutting – well, to this."  He tapped the paper in front of him.  _Paper, paper, paper, _Clarice thought.  _Everything gets reduced to paper in the end._  As if any sheet of paper could contain or explain Dr. Lecter.  

                "I realize that, sir," she said.  "With all due respect, gentlemen, I'm here because I want to do my job.  I know what happened to Mr. Krendler was horrible.  But I didn't do it to him, and I didn't place that ad.  I appreciate your concern for me, sir, I really do.  But I'm here, I'm alive, and I want to do my job, which is catching Dr. Lecter."  She sighed.  

                "I think what your real question to me is this: do I feel guilt or horror about Mr. Krendler's death?  And the answer is no, sir.  Not really.  That may seem horrible itself to you.  I don't think he deserved to die like that, and I would have helped him if it were in my power to do so.  Regret for Mr. Krendler is commendable," she said, and immediately wished for Listerine to scrub her mouth out with.   Or perhaps a power washer. 

"But other things are commendable too.  Duty, for one.  I believe that I can be of substantial assistance in apprehending Dr. Lecter, and I think fulfilling that obligation would be the best memoriam I could possibly give him.  And secondly, sir, I'm happy to be alive myself.  Let's not forget, the man who held me captive is a very dangerous, very violent man.  No one else has ever survived being in Dr. Lecter's custody in one piece."  

In any mystery or problem, there is that one flash of insight where it all comes together.  That flash, when the mind puts together the pieces it has and comes up with a whole, is one of the most satisfying experiences in the human condition.  It matters little whether the question at hand is a jigsaw puzzle or a serial killer's pattern:  the satisfaction of discovery is the same.  It is part of our animal instincts, an intellectual version of the savage joy that the world's first hunter must have felt when his sling stone brought down his prey and he approached its body exultantly.

Clarice Starling had gone into this hearing with just a shred of bad faith in her heart.  This was born of her anger and fury over this whole thing.  She had planned to say she was sorry about Krendler even if she wasn't.  She would plead helplessness, even though she knew it was not true.  But she had not intended to misinform the gray men of this august committee about Dr. Lecter's history.  

_But she had. _

Clarice stood with her mouth open, an expression of shock on her face.  Memories of a cross young woman in a hospital bed surged behind her blank eyes.  Then a self-confident, smug young doctor drinking wine in an airport bar.   Flying on to her residency and leaving Starling with only a sentence or two to hold onto and a theory no one else believed.  

_He spoke about you. He cares about you, very much. Thinks about you, every day._

"Agent Starling?" one of the gray men asked. 

"Clarice!" Pearsall stage-whispered, tugging her sleeve to get her to sit down.  

She sat.  

"What the hell are you doing?" Pearsall whispered into her ear.  "Look, I know it's been stressful, but you want these guys to think you're a good agent who's got it together.  You don't stand there and gawp at them." 

"Sorry," she managed.  

One of the gray men stood up.  It was the one who had asked her about counseling.  

"Well, Agent Starling," he said, "obviously, the purpose of this hearing is to determine whether or not you should be reinstated.  Given that we now have proof you are not guilty of what you were accused of doing, it's clear that full reinstatement without prejudice is what is called for here."  

"Thank you, sir," Clarice stammered.  _Just say your damn piece and let me get back to my desk.  _

"On a personal level, I'd like to say something, though."  

Clarice fought valiantly to avoid rolling her eyes.  

"I spent time on the job myself, years and years ago.  I've had to fire my weapon myself, and had to watch other agents who had to deal with the aftermath of having to do it.  It's not easy, Starling, and you should not try to go it alone." 

Starling's hands bunched.  She wanted him to say his piece and get done with it.  If he wanted her to, she would get a whole box of tissues and cry in each and every one of them if it got her the hell out of this meeting and back to Hannibal's House, where she could make some phone calls and run some checks.  

"This isn't like it was in Hoover's day, Starling.  We've got counselors and people who can help you.   Don't be afraid to use them."  

_Thanks, but I know a good psychiatrist, _Clarice thought.  Instead, she smiled prettily, displaying her white teeth.  

"Thank you, sir," she said respectfully.  

"Agent Starling, you are hereby reinstated without prejudice.  Agent Pearsall, please return Starling's ID and weapon.  This hearing is dismissed." 

Those were words Starling had waited so long to hear, ached bitterly until she could hear, and now they were simply an annoyance.  Pearsall grinned like a kid and reached into his pocket.  With a flourish, he handed her back a flat black leather case and her FBI encrypted cell phone.

"I had them on me," he said.  Despite Clarice's feelings towards most of her superiors in the FBI, Pearsall was a decent guy, a man who wanted to be fair.  "Congratulations. Good to have you back, Starling."  She smiled back at him for him.  

"Your gun's over at Quantico.  I need to send out the good word before you can get it back, though," he said as they walked out of the hearing room.  "Paperwork, you know how it is.  Give me an hour or so, will you?" 

"That's just fine," Clarice said tightly.  "Is my office still there?  They didn't give it away, did they?" 

"Hannibal's House down in Behavioral Sciences? Yes," Pearsall said, eying her suspiciously.  "What's the big deal, Starling?  Here you just got reinstated and it's like you've got ants in the pants."  

"I think I know where he went," Clarice said through gritted teeth.  

Pearsall raised his finger as if instructing a child.  Clarice let out a frustrated sigh.  She knew where this was going.  More lecture.  Her father had not lectured her half so often as the FBI.  

"Starling, calm down.  I know, you're pumped to get back on the job.  But I need to talk about a few things with you."  

"What?" Clarice demanded.  

"Once you were on suspension, we had a new guy take on the Lecter investigation," Pearsall said.  

"What?  Well fine, tell him he's off duty.  Lecter's my case."  She crossed her arms resolutely. 

"Starling, listen.  Your first official act back on duty will be to shut up for five minutes and listen to me."  

Clarice tapped her foot and listened. 

"The guy on the Lecter case now is real good.  His name is D'angelo.  Agent Paul D'angelo.  Real good profiler." 

"So I'm off the Lecter case?" she protested.  "You know, _I'm_ the one who came up with the search patterns that started popping up Dr. Lecter's magazine subscriptions." 

Pearsall's eyes flared.  "Starling, dammit, let me finish_."  _

Clarice shut up, but her blue eyes burned at him.  

"Your _second _official order is this: you are TDY'ed to Behavioral Sciences to assist Agent D'angelo in the Lecter search." 

"Assist?" she asked archly, venom dripping from the word. 

"Yes.  Assist.  Starling, I know you've been through a lot and all.  But I'm going to have to ask you to cut the prima donna crap."

"All right," she grumbled. 

"According to the paperwork, you will _assist _Agent D'angelo in trying to find Dr. Lecter.  Personally, I think you'd get along great with him if you gave him a chance and quit acting like a little kid who's being forced to share her marbles.  You've both got heavy psych backgrounds.  He's smart and he's good, Starling."  

Starling realized that it wasn't going to get much better than that and sighed.  Hopefully the guy would be the type to let her get some work done.  If it was another Krendler type, she would simply go get another cranial saw herself.  Couldn't be _that_ hard.

So she went along with it.  Pearsall took her to Quantico and arranged to get back what had been taken from her.  The gunny at the armory gave her her .45 back.  Its aroma was redolent of gun oil and she was pleased that it had been well taken care of.  Starling loaded it and put it in her holster.  There were more forms to fill out. Forms for receipt of her weapon.  Forms for her ID.  Forms for her phone.  Forms for her key cards.  Forms for ammunition.  Clarice had not signed so many damn forms at once since she had bought her duplex.  

"Maybe I ought to quit and become a consultant to the FBI instead," she quipped to Pearsall. 

Pearsall grinned.  Despite himself, he thought Starling was all right.  

"Nah," he said.  "You know the forms those people have to fill out?" 

Then they were in the elevator, heading down to the subterranean offices of Behavioral Sciences.  

"Crawford wants to see you," Pearsall said.  "He has to sign off on your TDY." 

Clarice nodded.  

Jack Crawford waited in his office, his thin face calm.  His eyes swept over Starling as she and Pearsall came in.  

"Starling," he grinned.  "Good to have you back.  You'll be TDY with D'angelo." 

"Agent Pearsall told me, sir," she said quietly.  

"D'angelo's a good guy, Starling. Give him a chance."  

"So I've heard, sir," she confirmed.  "I'll be nice.  No broken bones." 

Then it occurred to her that it might not be that funny after all.  Crawford simply grinned politely and rose from behind his desk.  He signed off on the form that assigned her to temporary duty with Behavioral Science.  Clarice felt uncomfortably like a prisoner being assigned to a new cellblock. 

She sighed.  She had to stop thinking like this.  The FBI was not her enemy.  They'd taken her back.  She could get Lecter.  

_And once you've gotten him, what are you going to do with him?  Do you **really **want to bring him in? _

_Of course I am, _she told that inner voice.  

Hannibal's House was not far from Crawford's office.  Crawford stuck his head inside the curtains. 

"Hey, Paul?  Come on out here for a moment.  There's someone I want you to meet." 

From inside her office came a tall, dark-haired man.  It had been a while since he last had a haircut, Clarice noted.  His hair was thick and bushy and added a few good inches to his height.  He wore a wrinkled blue shirt and Dockers.  

"Clarice Starling, Paul D'angelo", Crawford said.

"Hi," he said, and extended his hand.  "Nice to meet you."

"Agent D'angelo," she said calmly, and took his hand. 

"I sorta took over the investigation.  Nice to have you on board," he added.  

"I'll let you two get acquainted," Crawford said, and left. Pearsall departed too.  Clarice went into the curtains of her former office.  

The place hadn't changed much.  Paul D'angelo had put up a few pieces of posterboard on which he had taken careful notes of Dr. Lecter's preferences in cars, food, and antiques.  Some things were written in red, some in blue. 

"Looks like you haven't changed the place too much," she said.  "Hey, can I hit the computer for a minute?" 

Paul D'Angelo chuckled.  "Crawford put in a chit for a computer for you," he said.  "I've got a laptop signed out to me."  He indicated it where it sat on a desk.  "Feel free to use that for the time being."

Clarice attempted to log in, but her electronic credentials had not been restored yet.  She grunted in frustration.  

"Here, use mine," Paul said, and tapped out his login and password quickly.  "I know, all that paperwork, it sucks."  

"Yes it does," Clarice said with a sigh.  

"There you go, then.  Just don't go robbing any Swiss banks while you're logged in as me." he said with a grin.  Clarice smiled herself.  Thankfully, he did not feel the need to supervise her while she worked.

Clarice stared at the posterboard.  "So what does this all mean?" 

"The red stuff is magazines and stuff we know Dr. Lecter read before," he explained.  "The blue stuff is mostly stuff that might attract his eye.  Magazines that started publishing after his incarceration, stuff like that.  You never know when you might get a hit."  

Clarice nodded.  It was a good idea.  "How much information do you have on Lecter?" 

"Everything I can get," he said promptly.  "Trial transcripts, the whole nine yards.  Weapons.  Case files from the murders.  You did a great job in getting all the Lecter documents together, by the way.  I never talked to him myself, though.  That's where I'm hoping you can help."  

Clarice smiled tightly.  _At last, some goddam respect.  _

"Agent D'Angelo," she began, "I don't know what you expect out of me.  But I have a good idea as to where Dr. Lecter may be, or where he may have gone."  

"You mean the plane?" he asked.  "We've found it.  Little puddle-jumper, but it got him where he wanted to go quick.  I also found out that Lecter had taken some flight lessons years and years ago.  Before he was committed.  Took some work, but there it was."  He indicated a folder atop the desk.  "And you can call me Paul.  Seems we're going to be cube mates."  

Clarice took the file and looked at it.  It was quite calm and straightforward: three receipts from a flight school indicating that Dr. Lecter had taken three flight lessons about a year before his incarceration.  Still, she was impressed by it.  At least someone was thinking.  

"OK, then, Paul," she said, and decided she liked Paul D'Angelo after all.  "Tell me a little about yourself." 

"Well," he said, "I was a DC patrolman while I went to school.  Master's in psych from Georgetown.  Seven years in the field offices as a grunt.  Now I'm here."   He turned back to the computer and tapped a few keys as he continued.  

"As for you, Agent Starling, you're a graduate of the University of Virginia, double major in psych and criminology.  No master's degree, which I think you're nuts not to get.  Did a fellowship under Jimmy Price as his lab wretch.  You must enjoy pain, Starling, that guy's tough to work for.  Brought down Buffalo Bill a few years ago, been running jump-out squad duty ever since.  That butthead Krendler didn't like you too much."  He lowered his voice on the last sentence so that no one outside would hear. 

Starling raised her eyebrows.  "Very good.  And you can call me Clarice."  In a lower voice, she asked, "So you didn't like Krendler either?" Her tone was satisfied.

He shook his head.  "He was acting so damn smug after…well, after you.  Came in barking up and down about how I had to make sure he was copied in on everything.  Said I'd be joining you at Starbucks if I didn't. Big time butthead."  He rolled his eyes.  "I had a feeling it was Lecter when he came up missing.  Tough break for him, but it's well known that Lecter will leave you alone if you're not rude."   

_This guy is all right, _Clarice decided.  

"What was that like?" he asked.  He seemed interested.  

"I don't really want to talk about it," Clarice answered.  "I have a lead I want to follow up on." 

Paul indicated the laptop with a grand sweep of his hand.  

"A lead, huh? That's awful quick.  I kinda wanted to ask you a few questions," he said. 

"Ask away.  I'll answer if I can," Clarice said.  "Just let me do this first, ok?" 

Clarice opened up the program she was looking for and tapped a few keys.  She went digging in the FBI's archives for a particular old case file.  She also pulled up the information for state licensing bodies for all fifty states from the FBI's intranet.  She swore.  Fifty calls she would have to make, just to be sure.  Why hadn't someone made a form to do it all at once?

"I need to call state medical licensing boards," she said distractedly.  "Would you help me out on that?" 

"Sure," he said.  "I'll take twenty-five, you take twenty-five.  But you have to answer a question for me." 

Clarice sighed. This guy seemed real nice and all, but in the end it all came down to questions.  Men and their questions.  Quid pro quo.  Maybe he'd take her out to dinner and feed her someone's brain next.

"What was it like?" he asked eagerly.  "I mean, Lecter usually killed everybody.  Nine victims – well, ten now, with Krendler.  Two survived.  One was paralyzed and the other was in a loony bin in Denver.  But you walked out without a scratch."

"So what's your question?" Clarice countered.  "I know all that." 

"I know you were.  I mean—it's just -- doesn't it freak you out to know you're the only person who ever was with Hannibal Lecter and walked out in one piece?" he asked. 

Clarice turned away from the monitor of the laptop and let him see the file she was looking at.  It was a five-year-old file.   In large black letters across the top, it read:  KIDNEYHEIST.  

"That's just it, Paul," she said calmly.  "I'm not." 


	7. Couples

            _Author's note:  at long last, here is Chapter 7. _

Dr. Hannibal Lecter carefully stacked his things into the Vuitton suitcase.  He rather liked the carryall: it smelled of rich leather and the brass hardware shone attractively.  Atop it was a matching briefcase that contained his documents.  He had three false identities, with complete paperwork for each.  He had ten thousand dollars in cash.  Although Dr. Lecter found such large quantities of cash to be a bit vulgar, he had long ago accepted that it would be a necessity of life as a fugitive.  He had checkbooks to access his accounts and a signed lease from a property-management company.  

                The city was not quite as cosmopolitan as Dr. Lecter would have liked, but it would do.  Fortunately, an hour outside of the city provided ample small towns and farmland.  Dr. Lecter had found a very nice home in an isolated area.  He would not be disturbed, and the house was quite comfortable.  It would make an excellent hideaway while he waited to heal.  Finding him would not be an easy task, even for the FBI. 

                Dr. Lecter knew that the FBI's search methods primarily revolved around their belief that he would not want to deny himself those things he enjoyed.  A good idea, he thought, but they seemed to forget that he had done without those things for years in jail.  He knew well how to lie low.  And anything he absolutely couldn't do without, he could find a way to get.  

                He had made plans to take Erin out for dinner.  It would be pleasant.  A copy of Zagat's had told him where he could find a highly rated French restaurant.  Once she got back, he would tell her that he had secured a more comfortable home.  She was welcome to stay with him, if so she chose.  The house was nicely furnished and much larger than the apartment.  He would miss the opportunity to attend the world-class orchestras he was used to, but the local symphony orchestra would do just about as well.  At least for the time being.  Of course, he could always improve it by weeding out the unacceptable musicians.  And it had been so _long _since he'd last had sweetbreads....

                The apartment door clicked, interrupting his reverie.  Dr. Lecter's head turned to watch it carefully.  A moment later, it opened and Erin came in.  She looked at him, puzzled.  

                "New suitcase?" she asked. 

                "Yes," he said calmly.  

                "Are you leaving?" 

                "I'll discuss that with you over dinner.  We have reservations in an hour and a half."

                Her head tilted curiously.  "Where?" 

                "The Refectory," Dr. Lecter answered.  "Highly rated by Zagat's." 

                "That's ritzy," Erin observed. 

                "I can well afford it." Dr. Lecter pointed out.  "I took the liberty of providing clothing for you," he said.   He indicated a bag sitting on the kitchen table calmly. 

                Erin blinked.  "Thank you," she said finally.  

                "I trust you'll like it," Dr. Lecter added. 

                Erin complied.  Dr. Lecter sat patiently in the living room while she got ready.  He had already obtained a tuxedo, even though the restaurant did not demand black tie.  He slipped into the jacket, adjusted his bow tie, and he was ready.  A CD of the Goldberg Variations served to amuse him while he waited. He kept a close eye on his watch, since he did not want to be late.  The cell phone he had purchased that day under an assumed name rang from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. He examined the screen and noted the number.  

                He lifted the phone to his ear and pressed TALK.  

                "Dr. Lister?" came a young man's voice. 

                "Speaking," Dr. Lecter said calmly. 

                "I'm here.  Parked downstairs." 

                "Very good," Dr. Lecter said.  "We shall be down shortly."

                "Yes, sir," the voice replied. 

                Much later than Dr. Lecter would have liked, Erin came out of her bedroom hesitantly.  Dr. Lecter smiled as she stood before him.  He was quite pleased with what he saw, even though she was obviously hesitant and uncomfortable in this level of dress. 

                She wore a simple black silk dress that fell to just above the knee.  It was not terribly dissimilar from the dress he had chosen for Clarice a few days ago at Chesapeake.  Her hair was drawn back into a glossy black bun atop her head.  In one hand she held the small black clutch purse he had selected to go with the outfit.    Around her neck she wore a strand of pearls.  Dr. Lecter did not recognize them and supposed they were probably inherited: they looked antique. 

                She looked nervous and pensive.  Dr. Lecter nodded approvingly.  

                "You look lovely," he pronounced. 

                "Thank you.  So do you," she said nervously.   

                He offered her his arm as they walked downstairs.  Erin's heels clattered noisily against the concrete stairs.  At the base of the stairway, she saw the black limousine parked outside and stopped. 

                "Oh!," she said in surprise.  "Is that...?"

                "Yes," Dr. Lecter affirmed.  "Driving can be such a chore, don't you think?" 

                The chauffeur, who had called Dr. Lecter before, got out of the car and opened the rear door politely for them.  

                "Good evening, Dr. Lister," he said.  "Ma'am." 

                Once in the car, Erin gave Dr. Lecter a puzzled look.  "Dr. Lister?" 

                "You know I favor pseudonyms," Dr. Lecter explained.  

                "_Joseph_ Lister?" she pressed. 

                Dr. Lecter smiled and nodded once.  "You know your history," he commented.  "Impressive, Dr. Lander." 

                "The inventor of antiseptic medicine," Erin said.  "I know _I've _had patients I wouldn't mind putting carbolic acid on.  Most surgeons do, I guess." 

                "So do most psychiatrists," Dr. Lecter parried.  While Erin was joking, he was not.  Dr. Lecter had actually used acid once, on one of his more annoying patients.  He did not mention it, however.  Erin would not appreciate that side of him.  A pity, really.  

                The limo's sound system was playing classical music, the volume turned down low.  Erin seemed nervous amidst the elegance.  Dr. Lecter simply watched her, enjoying it. He knew what she was thinking—that she did not deserve all this elegance.  A bizarre way of thinking to Dr. Lecter's mind, but that was how it was. 

                "You didn't have to do all this," she said finally. 

                "I know I didn't have to," Dr. Lecter said calmly.  "I wanted to. Why should I not?" 

                The ride to the restaurant was quick.  The chauffeur helped them alight from the car.  Dr. Lecter gave his alias and they were seated at an out-of-the-way table in the corner.  The room was dimly lit and quite calm.  Conversations at the other tables were hushed and did not interrupt them in the slightest.

                Dr. Lecter ordered wine and Beluga caviar to start.  Erin seemed distressed when he did.  Dr. Lecter sighed.  After all, her transplant had cost him much more than that, and he didn't mind.  

                "Would you like an hors d'oeurve?" the waiter asked. 

                "Certainly," Dr. Lecter said.  "Tell me about the ragout."  

                The waiter nodded.  "It's crayfish and escargot," he said.  "Excellent, really." 

                Dr. Lecter seemed disappointed.  Then again, he doubted they would prepare the special ragout he had once made.  This restaurant was the finest in the city, but he did not think they would prepare ragout made from orchestra musicians.  

                "We'll try that," he said calmly.  

                For dinner, Dr. Lecter selected the baby lamb loin.  It was much more preferable to Raspail, he discovered.  The lamb was tasty and well cooked.  Raspail had been flabby and his sweetbreads gamy.  Erin chose the ostrich loin, with mushrooms and Grand Veneur sauce.  Both entrees were excellent, and up to the rare standards of Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

                Over dinner, they discussed her day and procedures.  Dr. Lecter thought she would make a fine surgeon, once completed with her residency.  After she had explained the different surgeries she had performed and watched that day, she cleared her throat. 

                "Dr. Lecter?" she asked. 

                Dr. Lecter tilted his head. 

                "First I wanted to say thank you for...all this.  But I was wondering.  And you don't have to tell me." 

                "What is your question?" Dr. Lecter asked kindly. 

                "Well...I was wondering how you came to cut off your thumb in the first place.  And what...," she steeled herself visibly to ask.  "What your plans are."  

                "I had an unfortunate encounter and needed to get out of a sticky situation rather quickly," Dr. Lecter explained.  "I had to get out of a pair of handcuffs.  As far as my plans...," He paused and ate a forkful of the wonderfully tender baby lamb loin.  He savored its flavor briefly and thought of Clarice.  

                "My plans, as they are, are to remain in the area while I still need your care," he said calmly.  "Which should be what, another week or so?  After that, I can't say.  The FBI is still after me, and they will eventually track me here."

                She seemed to be taking this well.  That was good, Dr. Lecter thought.  She'd always been firmly on the side of rationality, as most surgeons were.  

                "Don't be upset," he said.  "It's not you, certainly.  I'm quite grateful for your help, more than you know.  But the United States will not be the most comfortable place for me now.  You can understand that." 

                Erin nodded. 

                "I can't force you to come with me," he added.  "Life as a fugitive would not agree with you.  You've got your health to think of, and you've got a career ahead of you."

                She sighed and took a deep breath.  Her fork clinked as she put it down.  Her dark eyes fixed Dr. Lecter's.   She took a sip of wine to fortify herself.

                "What if I want to?" she asked.  

...

                Five o'clock came and went.  Then six o'clock, then seven, then eight.  Clarice Starling continued working along with Paul D'angelo.  Sometimes they worked separately, particularly in calling the various state medical boards.  Sometimes they worked together.  They were a good match, Clarice thought:  they challenged each other.  To his credit, Paul D'angelo did not get annoyed when Clarice came up with ideas that he had not.  It wasn't until eight-fifteen that Clarice called his attention to the time.  

                "If you've got to go, you can," Paul said.  "I've been pulling late hours." 

                Clarice shook her head.  "I'll stay with you," she said.  "Better that way." 

                "Want to split a pizza?" he suggested.  

                "Sure," Clarice returned.  She perused several sheets of paper that had been faxed to her.  

                "Found what you're looking for?" Paul asked. 

                "Looking for it," Clarice grumbled.  "Where did you say the plane was found?" 

                "Little airport in New Hampshire.  Lecter's probably making a break for Canada.  Why?" 

                "New Hampshire?" Clarice said in astonishment.  "No, wait.  That can't be right." 

                "Here's the report," Paul D'angelo answered calmly.  

                The report he passed over was a simple local police report stating that a Piper Cub had been discovered abandoned at a municipal New Hampshire airport.   Handwritten notations on it stated that an FBI forensics team was crawling over the plane.  

                Clarice consulted her other paperwork.  The New Hampshire medical board had indicated to her that no physician by the name she had given was licensed in that state.  

                "That's not it," she said heatedly. 

                Paul D'angelo sighed.  "How do you know?" he asked.  "You can't get too attached to your pet theory, you know.   Lecter's very difficult to predict." 

                "Look," she hissed.  "Lecter cut off his thumb.  He would not want to go through life with that disability.  He wouldn't leave the country until it was fixed." 

                "And how sure are you that this woman is the one he would go to?" Paul asked.  "I mean, Lecter had all sorts of friends in Baltimore.  Maybe the plane thing is wrong.  Just coincidence.  Lecter could have gone to one of his friends and paid him to treat him quietly." 

                Clarice shook her head.  "Dammit, Paul," she said, "it's Lander.  I know.  Baltimore's too obvious.  He knows we'd look for him there." 

                "How do you know?" he challenged. 

                Clarice tilted her head and grinned at him.  "Woman's intuition," she said sarcastically. 

                "She's not cleared as a Lecter victim," he pointed out.  "She ID'ed the perp as someone else, according to the file you showed me.  Not even when you leaned on her." 

                Clarice sighed.  "She lied," she said flatly.  "It was Lecter.  Lecter helped her out and she owes him a favor.  She lied to protect him." 

                Paul eyed her suspiciously.  "Why would anyone in their right mind protect Hannibal Lecter?" 

                _Why, indeed, _Clarice Starling, who had invaded Muskrat Farms specifically to protect Dr. Lecter, thought. 

                "She was afraid of him," she said thoughtfully.  "He may have done something to her...and he did something FOR her, obviously.  And he didn't kill her.  Stockholm syndrome, I don't know.  But it was him.  And it's her he's going to now." 

                "We haven't popped up a medical license for her yet, even.  Maybe she dropped out of med school.  Maybe she's working somewhere non-medical," he pointed out.  

                "Maybe we still have more states left to check," Clarice added. 

                "Tell me about it."  He rubbed his eyes.  From a desk drawer, he took a glass carafe and crossed out to the hall.  Clarice heard the bang and hum of the water fountain.  When he returned, he poured the contents of the carafe into a coffee maker on his desk.  The rich smell of brewing coffee soon filled the room.  Clarice closed her eyes and inhaled the pleasant aroma.  

                Once it was ready, Clarice went through her papers.  She filled a mug with blessedly strong black coffee.  There were still fifteen states left to check.  The state medical board offices were closed.  She decided to try the web.  

                She was awfully glad the FBI had several T-1 lines, as it made searching much faster.  Clarice surfed to each state government website and poked around to see if they had licensing information on the web.  Not all of them did, and Clarice found herself cursing under her breath more often than not.  

                Starling surfed to another site, typed in a name, and there it was.  She grinned triumphantly.  The web page on her monitor offered her the name, location, license number, and specialty of anyone who practiced medicine with that name or something similar.  There it was, second one down. 

                "Ha!" she said.  Paul D'angelo looked over at her from his own monitor.  

                "You sound victorious," he said.  "Whatcha got, Starling?" 

                "I'll make you a bet," she said.  "Bet you the cost of that pizza I know where Lecter is.  Bet you another pizza that that the New Hampshire plane is the wrong one, and that Dr. Lecter's plane went there."  She covered up the monitor with her fingers.  

                Paul D'angelo made a big show of rubbing his chin and thinking about it.  "I dunno," he said dubiously.  "Two pizzas.  You must be _real _sure, Starling."  His finger stabbed at her.  "If you're wrong, it'll be a real gruesome spectacle. I like my pizzas with ham.  And pineapples.  And _anchovies.  _All on the same slice.  It's vile, I tell you."

                Clarice laughed, and wondered how long it had been since a man last made her laugh.  

                "Yes, I am," she said. "Bet or no bet?"

                He nodded once.  "You're on," he said calmly.  

                Clarice drew herself up proudly.  

                "You know where he's hiding?" she asked. 

                He grinned. "Spill it," he said.  

                "You sure you want to know?" she asked.   "After all, you seem to think Dr. Lecter went to New Hampshire."   Her impish grin showed she meant no offense.  Normally, she was not so giddy.  But the lateness of the hour, the caffeine coursing through her system, and the fact that she really liked Paul D'angelo made her feel comfortable in being slightly playful.

                "Find me another plane and I'll look at it," he said.  "Now show me what you got." 

                Clarice uncovered the LCD panel of the laptop.  Paul craned his neck to see what she was hiding.  

                LANDER, ERIN MARIE.  COLUMBUS, OH.  35-296522352.  SURGERY. 

                "Dr. Lecter is in Columbus, Ohio," she said.     


	8. Proposals

            Night fell on the large, old house.  It stood alone on its hill, endless open fields separating it from its neighbors.  One might never have known that only twenty miles separated it from the city.  Out here, there was nothing but open grass, cornfields, and grain silos rising high like cylindrical fingers touching the sky.  Dr. Lecter found the environs a bit on the rustic side, but the house itself was comfortable enough.  

                It came furnished, and Dr. Lecter appreciated this for convenience's sake.  The furnishings were not quite up to his usual standards, but they would do.  He had to plan his next move.  Florence was out, and he regretted that.  It had been such a beautiful city, and the museum had been able to feed his intellectual thirsts in a way few environments could.   The European police would be on the lookout for him. It is much easier to hide out when no one is looking for you. 

                South America struck him as a possibility.  But South America in the summer could be brutally hot, as he knew from past experience.  He thought about Australia and wondered if that might be a possibility.  He'd never been to Perth or Sydney, and those might be big enough for him to hide out in.  He finally disposed of the idea after thinking about how he might flee if he needed to.  

                He lay on his side in bed as he thought, Erin Lander small and warm against him as she slept.  Dr. Lecter's bandaged hand hung over her side in a friendly gesture.  Her shoulders pressed against him as she breathed. Dr. Lecter could watch the soft, white skin of her throat beat in time with her pulse.   

                Ah yes.  Erin.  This was a matter for concern.  She wanted to go with him.  Dr. Lecter liked the idea, but had some real reservations about it.  One could be solved in time.  One could not.  He did not want her to interrupt her residency for him.  For one thing, it would be a shame to waste all that talent.  Just as Clarice Starling was born to hunt, Erin Lander was born to heal.  For another, there was her health to think of.  Dr. Lecter only knew in passing the drug regimen she needed, but her immune system would be suppressed for as long as she had the transplant.  He did not relish the thought of trying to treat an immune response while in hiding.  

                Despite that, he did not know what he would do if she demanded to accompany him.  It was, after all, her life to throw away if so she chose.  And she had helped him where Clarice had not.  That was difficult for him to acknowledge, but nonetheless true.  He did not know what would happen if she insisted on staying with him.  All he could do was make sure she knew the costs of such a choice.  Making it for her was not something he was prepared to do.

                But despite it all, he did not want Erin to suffer no matter what happened.  Not after everything she had done for him.  She could have turned him in multiple times, but hadn't.  Such loyalty demanded at least some consideration.  Dr. Lecter was a man known far and wide for his brutality, but compassion was not completely alien to him.    

                Thoughts of loyalty and compassion led his mind to Clarice.  She hadn't been loyal to him, of course, but she was loyal to her unappreciative masters with the FBI.  And loyal to her own principles.  Unfortunately, those principles involved putting him back in prison.  That was more than he could allow.  A pity, really.  And he knew that somewhere, in some subterranean room at Quantico, Clarice was somewhere trying to bring him down.  

                Dr. Lecter wondered idly if it would be possible to ever have Clarice and Erin at the same table.  In many ways, he thought they were just alike.  Both young career women, both possessed of strong will and principle.  Both orphans, with the steely-strong survival instinct of the orphan.  Both incorruptible according to their own principles.  Just as Clarice Starling guarded her lambs, Erin Lander would protect those under her care.  She had already stolen for him, lied for him, and hidden him away.  How far would she go to protect him?  Would it be as far as Clarice Starling went to protect her lambs?  Would she kill for him?   

                Dr. Lecter did not know and did not want things to approach that point.  He shifted in the bed.  Erin's back against him was warm.  He placed a hand calmly over her kidney, tracing the curved shape of the scar he had put there.  His mark on her.  

                He would have to wake her up early, he decided.  Her life had to go on, at least until she made a decision on whether or not to abandon it for him.  Dr. Lecter hoped she would make such a decision rationally.   

                But there would be time for this in the future.  Dr. Hannibal Lecter stretched out his lithe body and closed his eyes.  Sleep came quickly.  

...

             Clarice Starling grinned victoriously and stuck her head in the curtained-off alcove that she and Paul D'angelo occupied.  

                "Ha ha ha," she said.  "Guess what I got." 

                The night before, they had worked very late.  After finally calling it a night around eleven o'clock, Clarice had offered Paul a cup of coffee over at her place.  He had accepted.  Ardelia had been there, at first annoyed that Clarice was home so late, then shocked to see Clarice bringing home a man. 

                Ardelia considered Clarice her own responsibility while at home, and any man Clarice had ever tried to bring home had to pass the Ardelia test.  Most did not:  Ardelia Mapp had very high standards.  Most fathers did not subject their daughter's boyfriends to half so rigorous a test as Ardelia did.  

                Paul, for his part, had passed the Ardelia test with flying colors.  Humorous and charming, he had begun to win over Ardelia.  He was smart enough to realize what role Ardelia was playing.  By the end of the night, Ardelia was elbowing Clarice and raising her eyebrows.  Paul's offer to give Ardelia the recipe for his homemade tomato sauce clinched the deal.  Clarice expressed good-humored displeasure that Ardelia had sold her out for tomato sauce.

                That part vaguely bothered Clarice.  Recent experiences had left her a bit wary of men who liked cooking too much.  But Paul was funny, smart, and attractive.  He respected her for her brain and her experiences with Dr. Lecter.  And on the job, he was a match for her own dedication in tracking and finally catching Dr. Lecter.  

                Clarice had continued focusing on Ohio.  The OSU Medical Center been a bonanza of information for her.  They had graciously verified for her that Dr. Erin Lander was indeed a surgical resident there.  More importantly, they had also told her that a patient had been treated there recently for a severed thumb.  Thomas Daum, no known address, no known employer.  Adding to the interest was the fact that Mr. Daum had left the hospital.  He hadn't been discharged and he hadn't signed out AMA.  He had simply gotten up and vanished.  

                The Columbus papers had also told her that a man had been attacked the day Mr. Daum disappeared after his operation.  Bizarrely, his tongue had been cut out.  The hospital was more loath to part with details on that, as legal action was still a possibility, but Clarice knew exactly who had done the deed.  It was Dr. Lecter's style.   She asked for and got the medical chart for Thomas Daum faxed to her, which clinched the deal.  Mr. Daum's doctor of record was Dr. Erin Lander.  

                That was all well and good.  What was better was the phone call she had received early that morning.  That had given her the ammunition she needed to press on.  Plus, let's face it, pizza was on the line.  

                "Agent Starling?" the flat Midwestern voice had said into her ear.  "This is Deputy Harwood, Franklin County Sheriff's Office." 

                "Morning, Deputy," she had said.  "What can I do for you?" 

                "Did you send out a bulletin asking for information about a plane?  Stolen out of Baltimore?"  

                "Yes, I sure did," she said.  She scrabbled for a pen.  "You have something for me?" 

                "Yes, I do," he affirmed.  "We have a plane that's been abandoned for a few days out at Darby Dan airport." 

                "Is that the big one?" 

                "No, we've got a few, actually.  Darby Dan gets mostly small-plane traffic.  Anyway, it's just been sitting there.  No slot rented for it, no refuel, no nothing.  Tower records indicate it landed all right a few days ago, but whoever flew the thing just disappeared after it landed." 

                "What's the tail number?" Starling panted.

                The deputy gave it to her.   It matched the plane stolen from the airfield near Chesapeake.

                Starling grinned victoriously. 

                "Weird thing is, we had a missing persons case too," the deputy said, displaying more sense than Starling usually saw in local yokels.  "A private pilot disappeared from the airport the morning it landed.  We know he was there, people saw him, but his car is gone and so is he." 

                Starling leaned forward and bit her lip. Somehow, she should have known.  

                "You have that missing persons report handy, Deputy Harwood?"  

                "Hold on a moment," he answered, and Starling heard paper shuffling.  

                "Right here.  What did you need?  Is it related?" 

                "Might be," Starling said.  "Could you get me a make and model of the car? Tag number, maybe?" 

                He gave her that too.  She scribbled it down along with the words "Jeep Cherokee". 

                "Much obliged, Deputy Harwood," Starling said warmly.  "This helps us a lot." 

                "Not a problem," the deputy said.  

                "You have a good day now," Starling said, and hung up. That was when she stuck her head into the curtains and announced her victory to Paul D'angelo. 

                "Whatcha got, Starling?" he asked.  

                Starling handed him her notes and the fax she had received.  

                "Well, I know if I tell you Lecter's in Columbus, you'll lecture me," she said, grinning.  "So I'll just say this.  A patient named Thomas Daum was admitted to OSU Medical Center a few days ago to have his thumb reattached.  No known employer, no known address.  They thought he was just homeless.  _And_ he just walked out after his surgery.  _And _his doctor was Erin Lander."  

                Paul nodded with that small, sideways grin she liked on his face.  It invariably made her grin herself.  "Not bad, Starling, but not proof positive." 

                "You know what Daum means in German?  Thumb.  Tom Thumb.  Now who do you know who likes those sort of word games?" 

                "Like I said, Starling," Paul said, "it's good stuff, but you gotta be able to convince the Big Man."  He jerked a thumb at Crawford's office down the hall.

                That was okay. Starling had saved the best for last.  

                "_And _I found the plane," she concluded, showing him the tail number.  "Sheriff's office says it's on the tarmac at Darby Dan."  She reached forward and snatched the New Hampshire report off his desk before he could say anything. 

                "I know, I know," she said.  "Here, look at this."  She took the New Hampshire report and held it up side by side with her notes.  Her blue eyes sparkled.

                "The tail number is wrong.  Dr. Lecter's plane's tail number ends in 43, not 34.  Close--real close-- but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."  She handed him both reports and crossed her arms triumphantly at him.  

                She enjoyed the look of slow realization on Paul D'angelo's face as he looked at what she had come up with.  Slowly, he nodded at her, acknowledging her victory with good faith.  

                "Well?" she prompted. 

                "Not too shabby, Clarice," he grinned. 

                She raised an eyebrow.  "'Not too shabby'?  Is that all I get?" 

                Paul D'angelo pushed himself forward out of his chair and fell at her feet on his knees.  He held up his arms and bowed down low before her.  He seemed not at all concerned about pressing his face into the institutional gray carpet.

                "I'm not worthy," he cried dramatically.  "Please, may I bask in the reflected glory of your investigative excellence?"  

                "That's more like it," Clarice said archly.  "I don't get enough of that treatment around here."  

                He grabbed her around the knees.  "Marry me," he said. 

                Clarice laughed.  How long had it been since she laughed out loud?  Before Feliciana Fish Market, at least.  It felt good.  She felt good.  

                "It's so sudden," she played along. 

                "It's right.  Doesn't it feel right to you?  We'll raise our young down here in the fluorescent gloom.  Crawford can baby-sit.  Kids don't _really _need sunlight, do they?" 

                The thought of Crawford baby-sitting an infant made Clarice laugh harder.  She shook her head.  

                "I was referring to _my_ pizza," she said, grinning.  "Pizza owed by _you,_ tendered to _me_."  She tapped her chest with her thumb, just in case there was any doubt who was the creditor here.

                Paul abandoned her mid-bow and scrape and got back in his chair.  "Oh yes.  Pizza.  Two pies was the bet."  

                "With banana peppers," she told him. 

                A look of horror crossed his face.  "The wedding's off, then," he deadpanned.  "I could _never _marry a woman who ate banana peppers." He shivered in delicate horror.

                "Men," she lamented, putting a hand over her forehead in mock despair.  "How quickly they abandon you.  Tell you what.  Let's go to Columbus and see what we can find.  That'll make up for the pain of my lost engagement." 

                Paul nodded.  Humor was his way of dealing with most things, but when seriousness was demanded, he dropped it instantly. "Crawford's in a meeting until eleven.  This is definitely enough to get a travel chit, though." 

                "Travel chit, hell," Clarice said.  "We're going hunting for doctors." 

                "Hunting for doctors?  Are they in season?"  he grinned.

                "They are now," Clarice said promptly.  "First Lander, then Lecter."  


	9. On the Trail

_Author's note:  _

_            Pure, inhumane torture?  Wow, and here I thought Samantha Bridges with the cheese grater was bad.  Well, fear no more. Less goo in this chapter, and more action and moving things along.  It's been awfully fun to portray Clarice and the GD as happy with their respective partners, but now things will take a different turn...._

Clarice Starling plopped herself down in the gnome-sized airline seat.  She was relatively small, so the seat was only mildly uncomfortable.  She felt more badly for her partner.  Paul D'angelo was six feet tall, and the seat did not take his muscular frame comfortably.  He tried without success to find something resembling a comfortable position.  As the seat allowed only two inches more room than a galley slave had on the Middle Passage, it was an uncomfortable undertaking. 

                "Let's arrest the pilot," he suggested.  "This seat constitutes a civil rights violation."  

                Clarice grinned.  "How about we plan out what we're going to do?" 

                "There's a good Italian place outside of Columbus," he pointed out.  "You hungry?" 

                She rolled her eyes.  "I was thinking we might act like real FBI agents," she said.  "You know, interrogate Dr. Lander."

                "Ooooh."  He grabbed a copy of the old KIDNEYHEIST file she had printed out.  "Interrogate.  Should we get the bright lights and pentothal?" 

                She raised her eyebrow at him.  Paul hid behind the printout.  "Uh-oh.  The Look.  I'm in trouble." 

                She strove not to laugh.  She could feel it building in her stomach and throat.  He had that effect on her.  "The Look?" she asked. 

                "You know.  The Girl Look.  The you're-in-trouble look." 

                "The _Girl _Look?  You trying to dig that grave a little deeper, Agent D'angelo?" 

                "Well," he said.  "I'll shut up now."  He made a great show of poring over the file detailing how, five years ago, Dr. Robert Lawson had kidnapped Erin Lander and implanted new kidneys in her.  

                "I'll let you off the hook if you talk about what we're going to do when we get there," she informed him.  

                "Well, we can question her, but I don't think we'll get squats out of her.  Particularly if we do it at the hospital."  His voice lost its jocular tone and became quite businesslike.  

                "Why would that matter?" she asked, interested.  Behind the goofy humor lurked a sharp mind, as she was constantly reminded. 

                "Well, first off, she's a resident.  Residents need permission for just about everything.  Secondly, the hospital is going to be worried about getting sued by Mr. Tongue there.  We can do it if you want, but I think if we do it at the hospital, she's going to smile real pretty at you, tell you that whatever Mr. Daum told her was covered by doctor-patient privilege, and tell you to talk to the hospital administrator."  

                "Lecter's a danger to others," she objected.  "I think most judges would agree.  That negates confidentiality, doesn't it?" 

                "_I _agree with that," he said instantly.  "_She _won't." 

                "We could arrest her," Starling suggested.  "Bring her in on accessory charges.  Sweat her." 

                Paul D'angelo shook his head.  "I don't like it," he said.  "Then she just has to yell lawyer and everything stops. Besides, you don't want _her_, you want Lecter."  

                Starling considered that.  She knew in her head, of course, that Erin Lander was most useful to their investigation if she would either give up Lecter or lead them to him.  But there was a part of her that was resentful of the younger woman.  She remembered all too well Erin Lander in the hospital bed, recognizing Dr. Lecter's picture and refusing to admit it.  Erin Lander in the airport bar, refusing to admit that she had called Starling and so calmly denying Starling's theory.  Making Starling look like the obsessed nut.  

                And yes, there were deeper things, things she dared not admit.  She was resentful of Erin Lander because her career had suffered while the younger woman's had not.  While Clarice Starling had been denied most of her rightful rewards in the FBI, Erin Lander had progressed through her surgical residency with flying colors.   

                Beyond that, there was something deeper, something she could not admit even to herself.   Clarice was jealous.  Bitter images tumbled through the back of her mind, banned from her higher brain.  Dr. Lecter thanking Erin.  Holding her.  Lying in bed with her.  There was something in those images that chewed at her, but she reviewed them anyway.  Clarice Starling would have refused to admit it even under torture, but she was jealous.  She had spurned Dr. Lecter's offer, and so he had taken up with another woman.

                _If I'd taken his offer, _Clarice Starling thought as she looked out the window, _I'd be living in a mansion in Argentina right now. _      

                "If she helped him, that's obstruction of justice," she said suddenly. 

                Paul laughed and shook his head.  "No way.   Won't cut it.  No DA in the world would back you on that, Starling, and you know it.  She's a doctor, she's supposed to operate on people.  Put the claws in already." 

                "So what do we do?" 

                "Question her," Paul said.  "I don't think it'll turn up anything, but you never know until you try.  Who knows.  She might actually give him up.  Or give us something."  

                "We ought to tail her too," Clarice said. "If Lecter isn't in the hospital, she's probably treating him wherever he's hiding.  If we tail her, she can lead us right to him." 

                "Maybe," Paul said, "but we'll see what we have after we question her, how about?" 

                "I want to tail her," Clarice insisted. 

                Paul looked slightly consternated with her for the first time since she had met him.  Clarice was surprised.  His voice was a bit harsher than she expected.  

                "I know what you want, Starling.  I can see it in your eyes.  You want to haul her in a back room somewhere and beat her with a rubber hose until she confesses and admits she lied about Lecter before.  That still bugs you, doesn't it?  Or is it that you're jealous because Lecter went to her for help?"  

                Clarice Starling was shocked speechless for a moment.  For a moment, she felt like her skull was made of glass, all her innermost secrets exposed .   First Dr. Lecter, and now Paul D'Angelo. Was it that obvious?  Or did she just need dumber men in her life?   

"I am not...planning anything like that," she said slowly.  "I have never, ever abused a suspect in my custody.  Ever."    

                "See?  Since when is she a suspect?"  He raised his hands.  "Look, Starling, I don't want to start a fight with you.  But we're both profilers.  They teach us to recognize this stuff.  And you're jealous." 

                Starling was irked.  "I plan on being quite professional with Dr. Lander, I'll have you know," she said.  "And I was not planning to do anything to her that was not appropriate.  I don't care for the accusation that I abuse...questionees.  And I am _not_ jealous."  

                "I didn't say you did.  I said you wanted to."

                "I don't want to.  I want to get Lecter.  I just don't think that coddling is always the best way to get someone talking," she said angrily.  "If you take someone like a doctor, put them in a cell for a few hours, then try talking to them then, they're often very willing to talk to you if it means getting out."       

                "Well, we're not going to lean on Dr. Lander just yet." 

                "Who says?  You?" 

                "Considering I work for Behavioral Sciences and you're TDY, yes."

                Clarice grabbed her file and began to read it angrily.  She was annoyed at him for seeing through her so easily.   The accusation of jealousy stung, too.  It stung because in her heart of hearts, she knew it was true.   For the remainder of the flight, an angry silence ruled.  She pointedly ignored him.  For his part, he seemed exasperated with her and read the KIDNEYHEIST file. 

                _I guess this is our first spat_, she thought.  

                It wasn't until the plane landed and they began to deplane that she took his arm.  

                "Look," she said regretfully, "I know I'm a little annoyed with Dr. Lander.  She lied before.  She lied to protect him.  I could've gotten him if she'd talked." 

                "That's all right, Starling," he said.  "But we're not going to get anywhere if you're still mad about that.  That chance is gone.  Maybe she'll talk now.  Let's work on now." 

                "I don't want to fight," she said. 

                "Neither do I.  I could never stay mad very long."  He grinned as he shuffled down the narrow aisle of the plane.  

                They picked up their rental car and proceeded through Columbus traffic to OSU Medical Center.  The building was vast, but the volunteer at the front desk directed them to surgery.  They followed the signs to the elevators and made it to the surgical floor.  The nurse manning the desk told them that Dr. Lander was currently in surgery but was expected out shortly.  She directed them to a large concrete waiting room where families of patients waited.  

                "We're here now," Paul observed.  "Aren't we supposed to get a nice big piece of cheese?" 

                Clarice chuckled.  "I think they give pellets now."  

                His voice dropped conspiratorially.  "Let me ask you a question," he said. 

                Clarice's heart took a leap. He wasn't going to ask _that _sort of question, was he?  

                "Sure," she said. 

                He held up the KIDNEYHEIST file.  "What made you think Lecter in this? It's not his style.  And she ID'ed the UNSUB as Lawson." 

                Clarice found herself vaguely disappointed.  "Oh.  Well, she said Lawson liked gourmet food, classical music, stuff like that. Lecter's tastes.  Plus,...well...," 

                "Well what?" he prompted. 

                "I think he fed her her old kidneys," she whispered. 

                Paul D'angelo's face wrinkled.  "Tasty," he said.  

                "That's the sort of thing he would do." 

                "But why would he help her out?  I mean, seems like he spent a lot of time and effort and money." 

                Clarice considered.  He didn't seem to be challenging her, just honestly interested in her conclusion.

                "Dr. Lecter has the money," she said.  "It's a lot to you and me.  But to him, it's just a rounding error.  When you've got a couple mill in the bank, thirty or forty thousand isn't that much.  Plus...she was smart and she was polite.  I think it's the same reason he was attracted to me.  He saw her and she amused him."  

                "Weird way to amuse yourself," he said, bemused. 

                "Dr. Lecter is not a normal man," she said in a colossal understatement.  

                Paul D'angelo interrupted the conversation by looking at something through the plate-glass window and pointing.  

                "I think that's her," he said. Clarice turned.  Walking down the hall was a short, dark-haired woman in surgical scrubs.  She looked tired and wan.  Clarice rose from her seat and headed out into the hall. 

                "Dr. Lander?" she called.  The woman turned.  She hadn't changed much in five years, Clarice thought.  Her eyes raked across Starling's face with no recognition.  Clarice jogged up to her, Paul close behind.  Clarice took out her ID. 

                "Yes?" Dr. Erin Lander asked, her first words to Clarice Starling in five years. 

                "I'm Special Agent Starling. This is Special Agent D'angelo. We're with the FBI.  Is there somewhere we can talk?" 

                The temperature in the hall seemed to drop ten degrees when Starling identified herself.  She saw Erin's face close up into a mask of calmness.  

                _She knows what this is about, _Starling thought immediately. 

                "Well, I'm due for lunch," Erin said calmly.  "But I don't have a lot of time.  I have an appendectomy in an hour.  I believe we've met, haven't we, Agent Starling?"

                "Yes, we have," Clarice answered neutrally.  "How are your kidneys doing, Dr. Lander?" 

                "Just fine."  She gestured.  "The cafeteria's this way.  It's not great, I'll warn you now."  

                The cafeteria was about half full, and Dr. Lander selected an empty table.  She looked at the two FBI agents with a rather chilly calm.  

                "So what is all this about?" she asked. 

                Clarice plunged forward.  "Dr. Lander, actually, I wanted to ask you a few questions about a patient of yours.  Thomas Daum." 

                Erin took a bite of her sandwich and chewed as she thought.  "You know anything Mr. Daum told me is confidential," she said conversationally.  

                "Actually, I understand he lost his thumb." 

                Erin shrugged.  "Yes, he did.  He was admitted to the ER.  I was called down for a surgical consult.  We were able to reattach Mr. Daum's thumb." 

                "And then he left," Clarice observed.

                "Mr. Daum AMA'ed, yes."  Erin said.  Her face was carefully neutral. 

                "Did he sign out AMA?" Clarice pressed. 

                Erin shook her head.  "Unfortunately, no.  We'd have preferred that.  I've spoken to the hospital administrator and the hospital attorney, and they consider him to have AMA'ed." 

                Clarice tilted her head and adopted a tone of faux curiousity.  "Is that normal, Dr. Lander?  Do surgical patients just up and disappear after their surgery?"  

                It did not rock Erin.  "No," she said.  "But this is a hospital, not a prison.  We don't lock up the patients.  Mr. Daum was homeless, and may have had mental problems. He was quite confused in the ER." 

                If it was an act, it was good, Clarice thought.  "Now how did Mr. Daum come by his injury?" 

                "According to what he told me in the ER," Erin said placidly, "he was attacked by Freaky Freddy early in the morning." 

                "Freaky Freddy?" 

                "Fred Tilton," Erin explained.  For a moment, Clarice thought she had said _Chilton. _ The idea of Dr. Chilton as a psychotic bum had a certain appeal, but Clarice did not smile.  

                "Mr. Tilton has been on our psych ward before," Erin continued.  "He doesn't remain med-compliant when he's on the street.  Can I ask you a question, Agent Starling?" 

                "Sure," Clarice said, her eyes narrowing. 

                "Why is the FBI investigating the disappearance of a patient?  Mr. Daum wasn't under arrest and wasn't on psych hold.  He had every right to leave if he wanted to."  

                Clarice nodded slowly.  "We believe that Thomas Daum was a pseudonym," she said calmly.  "We're investigating a criminal who cut off his thumb to escape custody.  To get out of the handcuffs."  She kept a close eye on Erin as she spoke.  Erin's cheek twitched ever so slightly.  

                "We think that he might have sought out treatment from you," she said.  

                Erin took a few moments before answering.  "Like I said, Agent Starling, this is a hospital, not a prison.  We don't demand photo ID before treating someone."  

                "Did you contact the police?  It seems like Mr. Daum was the victim of an assault." 

                "Not immediately, no," Erin said.  It was frustrating.  She was completely calm and believable.  "My first concern was Mr. Daum's thumb.  I had planned to have him talk to the police after he awoke from anesthesia and was able to talk with them.  He walked out before I got the chance. Who do you think Mr. Daum really was, anyway?"  

                Clarice's lips formed the words _Dr. Lecter.  _She was all set to spill it when Paul D'angelo broke in.  He handed Erin a black and white mug shot of an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a heavy face.  Clarice tried to keep her surprise from showing.    

                "That's the man, Dr. Lander," Paul said in a standard-issue just-the-facts-ma'am voice.  "That's Thomas Pinzetti.  He's involved with the Tetrazzini crime family in Buffalo, New York.  Mr. Pinzetti was being transferred to a federal prison in Indiana when he escaped custody at a rest stop on the Interstate."

                A look of surprise, then relief, crossed Erin Lander's face before it closed up again.  Clarice shut her mouth, thinking _God bless Paul D'angelo.  _    

                Erin chuckled and handed the picture back.  "No, Agent D'angelo, that's not him.  Not even close." 

                "What did he look like, then?" Clarice asked.  

                Erin shrugged.  "I really didn't get a good look at him," she said.  "I see a lot of patients every day.  In his fifties, maybe sixties, gray hair.  Medium build."  

                "What color were his eyes?" Clarice asked calmly.  

                "You know, I really didn't notice," Erin said smoothly.  "I was paying more attention to his injuries."  

                "What can you tell us about the injury?" Paul asked.  He spread his arms and smiled.  "We do understand, there's confidentiality issues.  But we'd like to know what you could tell us." 

                Erin nodded.  "Very smooth.  It was a clean cut all the way through."  

                "Like a meat cleaver?" Clarice asked. 

                Erin nodded.  "You could say that," she said thoughtfully.  "Mr. Daum didn't specify how it had happened." 

                "And you didn't ask?" 

                "I could tell from the injury," Erin said calmly.  "I was more concerned with reattaching it." 

                Paul D'angelo stood up.  Quietly, he took Clarice's arm and yanked her up too.  Clarice went, fighting the urge to ask him what the hell he was doing.  He smiled at Erin Lander.  

                "Thank you, Dr. Lander.  That's really all we wanted to know.  Now, if you do happen to see Thomas Pinzetti, please call us immediately.  He's quite dangerous, you know." He offered Erin a card, which she took and put in the chest pocket of her scrubs.  "You have a good day now and good luck with your appendectomy." 

                Clarice didn't want to let Erin Lander go just yet, but she knew he had to be thinking of something.  She waited until they were out in the lobby before eyeing him and grinning. 

                "Tetrazzini crime family?" she asked.  "Thomas Pinzetti?"   

                "Yeah," Paul said.  "Haven't you ever had chicken tetrazzini?  I'll make some for you when we get back.  _Bellisima._"  He kissed his fingers and spread them out.  "C'mon, Starling, you don't put all your cards on the table.  If you'd said Lecter she'd have denied it out the ying-yang and beelined for a phone the minute we were gone.  Wise old man told me once.   You want them to think you're just smart enough to find your way back to the car without help." 

                "All right," she said.  "I'll give you that one.  But who was that picture?" 

                He pulled out the picture and handed it to her.  

                "That," he said proudly, "is my dear old Uncle Vincent.  He was in the Bayonne office of the FBI for years and years.  Uncle Vinny works great for whenever I need a mug shot of a fake criminal to show someone."  

                "Thank you, Uncle Vincent," she said to the picture.  "You know, some people might find that offensive." 

                "Not Uncle Vinny," he said calmly.  "He worked undercover when we both were in diapers.  He'd be honored that he could help.  He's eighty now and lives down in Florida."

                She had to laugh in spite of herself.  "And who's Thomas Pinzetti?" 

                "My lawyer," Paul grinned.  "We went to grade school together."  

                "So what do you think of Lander?" 

                "She's definitely hiding something.  Too cool.  You'd think she was questioned by FBI agents every day of the week.  And when you said he cut off his thumb to get out of the handcuffs, that got to her." he admitted. 

                Clarice grinned.  "I told you," she said.  

                "Yeah, you did."   

                 "So what do we do?" 

                "Find out her home address and stake it out.  Bet you a pizza it's not far from here.  Bet you another pizza that she'll drop by her place to get her medications, then head off to wherever Lecter is."   

...

                That night, Paul D'angelo won his pizza back from Clarice Starling.  She was not terribly concerned to lose it. They were parked across the street from Erin Lander's apartment building.  She had entered it an hour ago.  The dusk had been fast fading into night then, and now the street was lit only by the arc-sodium lamps overhead.  This quiet residential street had little traffic, and they were not disturbed.

                "There she is," Clarice said, indicating the figure departing from the doorway of the apartment building.  She watched Erin Lander walk up the street and unlock the door of a light blue Honda Civic.  Good.  It would be easy to follow.  

                Paul D'angelo waited until Erin had pulled out and traveled up half a block before he started the engine of the Lumina and slid easily into traffic.  Both he and Clarice knew proper following procedures.  Erin did not seem to notice them as they slid into place an eighth of a mile behind her.  They picked up the Interstate and headed north.  

                "You ready?" he asked tensely.  

                "Yup," she said tersely.  She checked her pistol again, heavy against her side in its holster.  A thin line of apprehension gripped her around the middle.  She took a deep breath.  

                _I'm going to see him tonight. _ 

                Erin Lander drove calmly and sedately, and Clarice found herself fidgeting as they remained behind her.  The waiting was the worst part.  She tapped her foot resolutely as they left the city limits of Columbus and headed into the suburbs.  Then past them.  The landscape was mostly trees and fields, the lights of occasional houses dotting the black.  

                Paul slid into the right lane but did not put his blinker on.  Up ahead, the Civic was exiting onto a secondary road.  Here, it would be harder to avoid detection.  Hopefully, Dr. Lander was not experienced at shaking a tail.  The area here was heavily rural, Trees and cornfields took up most of the landscape.  There was a tenseness in the care completely unlike the humorous, jocular atmosphere they had before.  Tonight was a night for business.  

                "Smart," Clarice Starling said to break the silence.    

                "How so?" Paul asked, his eyes on the road and the taillights a quarter-mile in front of him. 

                "We thought Lecter would be somewhere near the city," she explained.  "But this is just temporary.  And no one would ever think of looking for him here."  

                Up ahead, one taillight flashed a blinking yellow.  Clarice grinned tightly.  Paul turned left where Erin Lander had turned before him.  For a moment, Clarice was worried that Dr. Lander would realize she was being tailed and take them on a wild goose chase.  The road cut through several hills, and it was vaguely nauseating to cut through the country road: up, down, up, down.  

                There it was.  A house alone, high on a hill.  It was a large house, majestic and fortresslike amongst the fields.  And Erin's Civic was turning into the driveway, its tires noisy on the crushed rock.  Paul had noted it, but drove past it as if he had no recognition of it at all.  Clarice eyed the house suspiciously.  They drove down past the house for two miles before turning back.  

Perhaps a quarter-mile from the house, Paul stopped and pulled over.  

                "This is it," he said.  "You sure we don't want backup?"  

                "By the time they get here, they could both be gone," Clarice said.  

                She drew her weapon and checked it again.  Anticipation stuck an arrow of nervousness into her gut.  

                "Showtime," she said. 

...

                Dr. Hannibal Lecter sat on the couch in the living room of the house.  His hand was held in Erin's.  Calmly, she examined his thumb.   On a table was the bandages and splints that had held his thumb onto his hand.  A lamp was tilted towards his hand to give her light.   In her other hand she held a pair of scissors.  She was removing his stitches with infinite care.  Dr. Lecter rather liked her bedside manner:  she was calm and reassuring, and the steel blades moving so close to his skin bothered him not at all.  

                "So what did the FBI ask you?" he asked.  Although her news had rocked him, his hand and arm remained perfectly still in her grasp.   

                _Snip. _"They asked me if you were a mobster," she said.  "From Buffalo." 

                "It's a lie," he said calmly.  "They know.  And they'll be after me."  

                "So, we'll leave," she said.  "No problem."  

                "We'll?" 

                _Snip.  _Another stitch fell, and she carefully brushed the black knot of thread off his hand.  "We," she said resolutely.  Her eyes slid up from his hand to his eyes.  Without flinching, she said, "I don't want you to leave me, Dr. Lecter." 

                "That's quite a serious choice, Erin."  

                "If you don't want me, say so," she said, returning to her work.  Dr. Lecter saw the vulnerability in her eyes, even though she tried to hide it by removing another stitch. 

                Dr. Lecter took a deep breath, but said nothing for several moments.  Finally, he asked, "And what of your residency?" 

                "I can apply somewhere else," she said resolutely. 

                "You will not.  You will have to use another identity." 

                She nodded and took out a third stitch, rotating his hand in hers to get at it.  

                "Ever heard of Angela Brinkley?" she asked conversationally. 

                "I have not," Dr. Lecter said.  "Who is she?" 

                "My old roommate," Erin clarified.  "We went to med school together.  She was my roommate...the first time we met." 

                "I see," Dr. Lecter said.  "Don't you think she will know if you use her identity?" 

                "No," Erin said distantly, still focused on his thumb.  "She was killed by a drunk driver two years ago."  _Snip.  _Another stitch fell"I have all her paperwork.  Driver's license, social security, birth certificate, and med school degree.  Everything I need.  I can have a medical license in any state or country inside of a couple of days."  

                Dr. Lecter was surprised.  Had she prepared this with him in mind, or had she simply kept her friend's paperwork?  "And what of your health?" 

                "Not much to say," she said.  "No worse than yours.  I've made preparations."  Another stitch fell to her scissors.  "I've got three months worth of immune suppressants and plenty of prescription pads."       

                Dr. Lecter fell silent.  A few more stitches, and it was done.  Experimentally, he wiggled his thumb.  He nodded approvingly.  

                "Good work, Dr. Lander," he said courteously. "Thank you."  And then it happened.  

                Dr. Lecter was not sure what it was that set him off.  A faint sound, an aroma, perhaps simply the psychic scent of danger on the wind.  But his head snapped up.  His eyes flared and so did his nostrils.  Like most predators, Dr. Lecter was able to sense danger quickly.  

                 "They're here," he said. 

                To her credit, Erin did not appear nervous or tense.  That did not surprise him.  As a surgeon, she would have been trained to react calmly under pressure.  

                "All right," she said calmly.  "We can handle it."

                ...

                The front door was locked, but a side door proved to be open.  Clarice Starling and Paul D'angelo slipped into the house via the servant's entrance in the back.  Clarice glanced around.  The house was large and quite nice: the country manor of a gentleman farmer.  The kitchen was quite big, although the appliances seemed too plain for Dr. Lecter.  Clarice estimated the stove had been manufactured roughly around the time of her own birth.  

                Paul D'angelo had his weapon drawn and out.  Clarice tightened her grip on her own weapon and eyed the door for a moment.  She placed her back against the door, weapon up, and pushed it open.  She swept the room, head, arms, and body all turning at once like a turret.  Her world was the front sight of her .45  and everything beyond it.  John Brigham would have been proud.  

                Neither she nor Paul spoke.  She took one corner, he took another, sweeping out the room and finally nodding to each other that it was clear.   Then, two sounds interrupted the silence.  From the right and up, the sounds of feet running up the stairs.  From the left, and farther away came the tinkle of glass.  They glanced at each other wordlessly, reams of communication in their gaze alone.  Each knew the same thing.  

                Hannibal Lecter was as dangerous as they came, but he was wounded.  Erin Lander was not violent.  Splitting up was an acceptable risk, and probably the best tactical choice.  Neither of them wanted to let Hannibal Lecter get away.  Paul gestured upstairs, pointed at himself, and waited.  Clarice nodded.  She turned to the left and headed through the dining room doorway.  Paul turned towards the stairwell and ran up it, weapon out.  

                Clarice advanced through the dining room.  The table was heavy oak and dominated the room.  A china cabinet leaned against one wall.  Overhead was a chandelier, a surprising touch.  The room seemed empty, and an open doorway ahead led to a living room.  Clarice advanced slowly, checking her corners, the muzzle of the gun swinging to and fro.  

                On the coffee table in the living room was some surgical tape, metal splints, and some bloody gauze pads.  Clarice's eyes fixed on it.  She knew immediately whose blood was on there.  She grinned victoriously at it.  After all this, proof positive that she had been right. 

                From behind Clarice came a sound.  Then something grabbed her, a fist in her hair pulling her head to the left.  Clarice jerked.  A needle stung at the base of her neck.  The person holding the needle knew right where to put it.  The needle neatly slid through Clarice's skin into her carotid artery, right where it came close to the skin.  She could feel the cool liquid in the syringe as it flowed into her bloodstream.  

                The liquid was an ultra-quick-acting barbituate.  It flowed up Clarice's carotid a few inches to her brain.  She tried to fight, but it was already too late and she knew it. Her eyes began to blur, the surgical tape and gauze in front of her fuzzing into a white mass streaked with red.  Her captor pulled the syringe from her neck and let it fall on the floor.  Faintly, Clarice could hear the plastic barrel rattle against the wooden floor.

                Clarice Starling's body obeyed her final command to turn and face her tormentor.  But as she pivoted, consciousness was already beginning to slide from her.  She felt the gun tumble from nerveless fingers and heard it clatter to the floor.  Her knees unlocked slowly as she turned, and she was halfway around in the doorway by the time she lost consciousness. 


	10. Rivals

There are those of us who come first ,and those who come second. This is not always a rank; often it is simple chronology, the passage of time and events. If a man has two sons, the second son may be more successful, more intelligent, and more dedicated. But despite all that, he will never be his father's firstborn son. This holds true in groups as well as individuals. If a man has children by two women, the children of the second and the children of the second will often become rivals.

Rivalry is often bitter and spiteful, and it can be bitterest when two women are rivals for the same man's affections. Two women who may be very similar—who might, had the mists of chance and circumstance taken them down different paths been inseparable friends --may end up as the bitterest of enemies. It is simple human nature to devalue your rival, to deny her better qualities. Indeed, when the sharpest of emotions are on the line, it is a darker side of human nature to depersonalize your rival, to regard her as simply evil. Devoid of any good or even recognizably human qualities. And when two women are rivals for the same man's affections, and one has the other in a vulnerable position, the results can be tragic. 

Erin Lander was a perfect example of this as she gazed down on the unconscious form of Clarice Starling. It had taken quite a bit of effort for Erin to lift Clarice to the dining room table. She might have superior surgical knowledge to Dr. Lecter, but she lacked his antlike strength. Erin was small and Clarice was a heavy burden to haul up onto the table. But she had been determined, and now Clarice was arranged neatly on the table. 

Many women will bitterly fantasize about harming their rivals. Idle fantasies of killing or mutilating the other woman tumble through the heads of a lot more women than would ever admit it. Erin Lander was slightly more burdened in this. Every day, Erin Lander cut open someone else's body. She knew exactly what to do and where to go with a scalpel. She could simply scar Starling -- if so she chose -- but she also knew just how and where to cut in order to do worse.

We commonly convince ourselves that doctors are all good people, ethically forbidden from harming others. The nine victims of Dr. Hannibal Lecter might inform us differently. Dr. Erin Lander, by her nature, was not a killer. But her years of medical training offered her no extra ability to deal with jealousy and anger. She knew each and every organ in the body, and how to repair each one, but that gave her nothing extra at all in helping her deal with the emotional deluge that had drowned her rationality and soaked her lizard brain with rage. Clarice Starling wanted Hannibal Lecter back in a filthy cage. Clarice Starling wanted to take Dr. Lecter away from her. That was bad enough. But worse, Clarice Starling occupied a firm, unassailable place in Hannibal Lecter's mind. Dr. Lecter might care for her now, might even love her now, but he could never fully love Erin Lander for as long as Clarice Starling was alive. 

Her eyes were hot and bitterly angry as they perused the other woman's face and body. She bit her lip in anger as she wondered what would do. Her lips paled with anger as she wondered what would do for the bitch. Anger and hatred tasted coppery on her tongue, like a cheap coin. What would be the most appropriate? What would Dr. Lecter approve of? 

Was it her eyes? Erin could get those out inside of ten minutes. She hadn't brought along anything more specialized than a scalpel, forceps, and hemostats, but she could still get them out. The hard part was getting to the optic nerve. If Dr. Lecter liked her eyes, Erin would give them to him. He could keep them on his desk or on a shelf. She would let him, she decided. Or perhaps he fancied Starling's hair? Auburn and beautiful in the light. Like a winter sun, Starling's hair was remotely glorious. That was even easier: trace around the scalp with a scalpel, then carefully peel it free. The sort of thing an intern could do. 

Or perhaps he wanted her face. Entire and unmarked. Erin could deal with that too. She closed her eyes and wondered how she could get through the neck. The scalpel would take forever. Wait, she thought. This was a country house. There was probably a hatchet around here somewhere. Maybe a chainsaw. Erin closed her eyes and thought about the amputation she had watched the other day. The churning teeth of the chainsaw would chew up Starling's neck some, but she could trim it off and make it neat for him. Dr. Lecter would have his Starling. He would be able to see those eyes whenever he wanted. But of course, he would eventually put her away once she could no longer interest him.

Dr. Erin Lander thought about Clarice Starling's severed head in a jar. Thought about it stored away in the basement of a house somewhere where she lived with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. _What did you ever do with that old head? _she would ask. And he would reply, _Oh, that. I lost interest in that thing. Never mind. I needed it before, but not anymore. _ And he would put it in some dark place where Dr. Lander would be able to occasionally look in on her in triumph. 

Or perhaps he would like something more visceral. That was fine; she could accommodate even that. Erin put her hand on Clarice Starling's chest and felt the beating of her heart. Fifty-six beats per minute; apparently she took care of herself. She toyed with the idea of ripping out Clarice's heart while it still beat, holding it high in her hand like an Aztec priestess. She wondered if she could time it so that the anesthetic wore off just in time for Clarice Starling to awake, take in the gaping hole in her chest, realize that the chunk of bloody meat in Erin's hand was her own heart. _I would be the last thing she ever saw. _

That would be harder, the surgeon in her allowed. She had nothing to break the ribs with, and that was the hardest part. There might be pruning shears in a gardening shed somewhere. There was a fireplace poker adorning the fireplace that she could use once she got through the skin: just lever the point in between the ribs and push on it until they broke. The heart itself would be easy to remove. 

Dr. Hannibal Lecter had a large psychiatric practice before his arrest, and he had counseled quite a few killers. He knew well what a fledgling killer thinks and feels as they begin their first attempt at transformation. He had been there for some of them, nodding approvingly and encouraging. Dr. Lecter could have told the FBI a thing or two about a killer's first kill: the killer often queasy and terrified, nausea tickling the back of their throats as they prepare to do their unspeakable deeds for the first time. He had calmed them down, helped them do what they were born to do, an unspeakable midwife at the birth of a killer's career. He knew the wide eyes, the screaming nerves, and the racing heart of the first-time killer. He would have recognized them in his Erin now, as she began to lay out her instruments. 

Scalpel. Forceps. Retractors. Small and large scissors. IV needles. 

Dr. Erin Lander took a deep, shuddering breath and looked down at her victim. 

...

Paul D'angelo ran up the stairs. His heart was pounding. Somehow, he just knew his prey was Hannibal Lecter. The footsteps he had heard were too heavy to belong to Dr. Lander; from what she looked like she wouldn't break a hundred pounds unless she was soaking wet and wore heavy boots. And there was something else. He could sense the man in front of him. Paul D'angelo was a mindhunter in his own right, and while he did not know Lecter as well as Clarice Starling did, he did know the man fairly well. 

He reached the top of the stairs. There was a short hall, and Paul headed down it. His gun was out and up. His pulse roared in his ears. He knew all too well what the good doctor had done to those prison guards brought to watch him in Memphis. And he held no illusions about Dr. Lecter. If he found the man alone, the possibility was very real that Paul would have to kill him. 

The first room was a bedroom, furnished simply in the Midwestern fashion. Paul checked it quickly. Fear spilled adrenalin into his He did not see Dr. Lecter under the bed or in the closet, so he left, closing the door behind him. In the next room, he found the monster. 

Dr. Hannibal Lecter stood calmly in the center of the room. He wore a simple but elegant blue suit. Paul was somewhat deflated: in the flesh, Dr. Lecter seemed to be just another man. Hair elegantly coiffed and suit immaculate, but he was somehow less than the vampire that had stared from countless mugshots in Paul D'angelo's office. He tilted his head and studied Paul through basilisk eyes. 

"Hello," Dr. Lecter said calmly. 

Paul held the gun in both hands and aimed it straight at Dr. Lecter's nose. 

"Dr. Lecter, I'm Agent Paul D'angelo of the FBI. You're under arrest." His voice quavered just a bit in fear. At first he cursed himself, then he realized that you would have to be insane _not _to feel fear in the same room as Hannibal Lecter. 

"I see," Dr. Lecter said, unruffled. "_D'angelo_. Of the angel. Italian, is it not?" 

"Yes, it is," Paul confirmed. "Now listen to me, doctor, and listen to me well. If you screw with me, you're going to find out firsthand if there are angels or not. I've seen your crime scenes and I know what you're capable of. If I have to, I'll kill you without a second thought." 

Dr. Lecter nodded approvingly. How rare. An FBI agent who correctly used 'well' instead of 'good'. Dr. Lecter raised both hands to shoulder height. Even this gesture of surrender seemed to be elegant, as if Dr. Lecter was simply handing two glasses of wine to someone. 

"That shall not be necessary," Dr. Lecter said smoothly. "I have an offer to make you, Agent D'angelo. A reasonable one you will have no ethical problem in fulfilling." 

"Dr. Lecter," Paul said, the muzzle still hovering in front of him, "I'm not going to fall for any tricks here." 

"No tricks," Dr. Lecter assured him. "Now I'm sure you're here with Special Agent Starling." 

Paul hesitated. A bead of sweat slipped down his forehead into his eye and made him blink. Then he nodded. 

"As you no doubt know, here in this house is my…personal physician, I guess you could say. Dr. Erin Lander. Whom you spoke with earlier today." Crazily, Paul thought that Dr. Lecter sounded like the sergeants in the squad room, at the morning roll call when he was on DCPD. 

"I'm sure you know firsthand, as I do, that jealousy can make people do unspeakably ugly things to each other," Dr. Lecter continued. "I believe that Agent Starling may be in the throes of jealousy herself, and that she may do something to Dr. Lander that she does not deserve." 

Paul's mouth twitched, and too late he realized that he had just telegraphed to Dr. Lecter that his suspicions were correct. _Why not give the guy a notarized deposition, Paul? This guy is good, way good. _

"Agent Starling is quite capable of being fair," he said robotically, and almost kicked himself as soon as it came out. 

"Nonetheless, Agent of the angels, I will make you an offer. I will go along quietly without even the slightest bit of trouble. You've got a gun and I don't, after all. In return for this, I want to see Dr. Lander go free. She's done nothing she shouldn't have done. I called her here, and I want her to leave unmolested. Unhandcuffed, unharmed, and out the door. Let me see it with my own eyes. If you do that for me," Dr. Lecter stopped and took in a sharp breath, "I will return to custody without issue." 

Paul D'angelo considered. They would definitely want a statement from Dr. Lander, but that could be done later. And as he had told Starling on the plane, no DA in his right mind would try to indict Dr. Lander: it was her _job _to help the wounded, just as it was his and Clarice's to protect the public – the lambs, one might say. 

Was that all Lecter wanted? There had to be a trick. Or was he just trying to protect Erin? That Paul could believe: Erin had protected him, and Dr. Lecter would not ignore such a thing. Paul Krendler and Dr. Doemling had opined that Lecter did not have emotions like respect or love. Paul D'angelo knew they were wrong. 

Under the red gaze of those basilisk eyes, Paul felt unpleasantly as if under a microscope. Dr. Lecter seemed to be scanning him, reading him for useful information. Paul knew that Dr. Lecter was a monster, and that whatever he was able to glean would not be used for good purpose. 

Better that he be the one to bring Lecter in than Starling. He was afraid for Starling. The monster knew her very well, and could exploit her weaknesses. But in the end, he realized, he had to answer the doctor's question. 

"All right, Doctor," he said calmly. "First I want you to turn around. I'm going to put cuffs on you. If you move at all, I'm going to shoot you until you stop moving. Do we understand each other?" 

"Yes, indeed," Dr. Lecter said, and let out a mighty sigh, like a father asked to play the dragon for his son. But he turned around obediently, still holding his hands up. 

Paul D'angelo approached Dr. Lecter. His right hand gripped his gun. Sweat made it slippery in his grasp. With his left hand, he took out his handcuffs. Fear tasted coppery in his mouth as he approached the monster. With a shaking hand, he fastened the handcuff onto Dr. Lecter's wrist. 

"I'll lower my arms now," Dr. Lecter said as calmly as he might have to a Swiss masseur. "Mind the other hand, please. I've just had surgery on it. It's sore." 

Paul said nothing, but put his gun back in his holster in order to handcuff Dr. Lecter. Although his heart rate jumped when he did, the monster made no move to attack. Dr. Lecter held his hands compliantly as Paul locked the manacles on. 

Courteously, Dr. Lecter waited until Paul had taken a few steps back and taken out his weapon. He knew what the younger man must think of him. The monster. And Dr. Lecter would admit that characterization was not completely wrong. 

"So how is Agent Starling?" he asked conversationally. His pupils expanded slightly as he watched Agent D'angelo's reaction. What he saw did not please him and he buried it immediately in the oubliette of his memory palace. Agent D'angelo's eyes widened a bit. His pupils darkened. The look that passed over his face for only a fraction of a second spoke volumes. 

Agent D'angelo cared for Starling. He could tell immediately. Dr. Lecter pursed his lips. A shame, he seemed like such a promising young man. 

"She's fine," D'angelo said neutrally. 

"Very well," Dr. Lecter said, closing off the conversation before he said or did something he regretted. "May I see her, please? And Dr. Lander, as per our agreement?' 

Paul considered. Dr. Lecter could almost hear the thoughts clicking back and forth in the efficient computer of his mind. 

"No tricks," he said curtly. 

"None at all." 

"All right." Paul did not take his eyes or weapon off Dr. Lecter. "Starling?" he called. "Starling, you there? It's D'angelo. I've got Dr. Lecter in custody." 

No reply came at first. Then a woman's voice, choked and clotted with emotion, called out. 

"Down here, you son of a bitch." 

Paul D'angelo and Hannibal Lecter traded looks for a moment. Both knew the voice was not Clarice Starling. Without needing to be told, Dr. Lecter walked slowly forward, his mien nonthreatening. A few moments later, D'angelo walked after him. Down the stairs they went to the dining room. 

Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Agent Paul D'angelo took in the sight before them with identical looks of surprise. Clarice Starling was stretched out on the dining room table like a sacrificial offering. She seemed to be drugged or sleeping. At her head, Erin Lander stood with a scalpel in one hand. Her mouth was trembling and her eyes wide and glassy with fear and rage, but the hand holding the scalpel next to Clarice Starling's unguarded throat was steady as a rock. 

When Erin spoke, her words were sophisticated, but her voice jagged up and down the scale in hysteria. 

"Dr. Lecter, Agent D'angelo," she said. "You're finally here. We can begin." 

"Hey, put that down," Paul D'angelo barked immediately. Both Erin and Dr. Lecter ignored him. 

"Erin," Dr. Lecter said simply. 

"Dr. Lecter," Erin returned. "I'll let you start. Pick an organ, any organ." 


	11. Hard Choices

            Paul D'angelo's weapon swept from Lecter to Erin and back.  He was torn:  all of his studies on Lecter told him that to take the gun off Lecter for a minute could be suicide.  Yet Dr. Lecter stood there calmly, his hands behind his back as if lecturing a class.  It was Erin who was paradoxically the more dangerous:  the blade at Starling's throat and the mixture of fear, terror and rage playing across her face told him that.  

                This wouldn't be easy.  Paul had studied hostage negotiation, and it was a common tenet of hostage negotiation that a hysterical perp is harder to deal with than a calm one.  Paul didn't think Dr. Lander was a killer – doctors usually weren't, with rare exceptions – but she was obviously not in control of her emotions, and that complicated his tasks.  

                "Dr. Lander," he said soothingly, "put down the scalpel." 

                "Like hell I will," she quavered.  "You put down your gun." 

                Paul lowered the muzzle of the weapon but did not put it down.  He hoped it would be enough.  

                "Now take the cuffs off Dr. Lecter," Erin demanded. 

                Paul shook his head slowly.  "I put down my gun, Dr. Lander.  Now think this through."  His voice was calm.  "You don't really want to hurt Agent Starling, do you?"  He took a cautious step forward. 

                "You want to save Agent Starling," Erin said bitterly, her voice jig-jagging up and down in a reflection of her emotional state.  "You move back or I swear to God, you'll be able to save what's left of her in a goddam _jar_."  

                Paul stopped.  "Now come on, doctor.  I know you're upset, but let's not hurt anyone.  Nobody wants to hurt you.  You don't want to hurt Starling, do you?"  His mind whirled, trying to think of what to say.  Dealing with hysterical doctors who meant to vivisect your partner was not part of normal FBI training.

                "Yes I do," Erin said bitterly.  Her lips were pale and trembling.  Her eyes were wide with shock.  He could see her throat moving.  Thankfully, she retained enough of her surgeon's training to keep the hand holding the scalpel next to the soft, silken skin of Clarice's throat still.  "She wants to take him away from me." 

                "Look," Paul said.  "No one's taking anything away from you.  Dr. Lecter is under arrest, but you know you can see him, you can visit him.  Now just give me that scalpel, and no one will hurt you." He took another step forward.  

                Erin's eyes flashed in fury.  The scalpel blade moved across Clarice's throat.  A thin line of bright red blood welled from the slit.  Both Paul and Dr. Lecter jumped.  Paul stepped back, reholstered his weapon, and raised his hands to show he meant no harm.

"Okay.  Okay," he said.  "I'm moving back now." 

  Dr. Lecter was calmer:  the wound on Clarice's throat was quite shallow.  It was a warning, nothing more, and he had little doubt that Erin could have done much worse if she wanted to.  But it was time for a professional to take over these negotiations. 

                "Agent D'angelo," Dr. Lecter said.  He drew out the syllables into four, speaking very precisely. Paul looked at him suddenly, wondering if he was mocking him.  

                "Agent D'angelo, I want the same thing as you," Dr. Lecter said calmly.  "May I approach Dr. Lander without being shot?  Perhaps I can...resolve this situation." His tone and manner was the same as if he had asked Agent D'angelo for more Earl Grey tea.  

                After thinking about it for several long moments, Paul D'angelo nodded slowly.  His eyes narrowed.  

                "Dr. Lecter, I'll let you, but I'll warn you right now.  If you tell her to cut on Agent Starling, I'll gut-shoot you first, then her."  

                Dr. Lecter sighed, as if the threat was merely a social gaffe.  

                "Agent D'angelo," he said calmly, "even a demon can be an agent of angels.  I assure you, I shall not encourage Dr. Lander to continue her experiments in vivisection.  I understand the stakes here.  There's no need to be rude."

                With that, Dr. Lecter walked forward to where Erin Lander stood trembling over Clarice Starling's unconscious form.  He met her eyes firmly.  Paul D'angelo considered trying to rush her, but decided he couldn't.  If he didn't get the scalpel out of her hands in time...

                "Erin, I understand what you're doing," Dr. Lecter said kindly, "but don't." 

                A look of shock came over Erin Lander's face.  

                "But...but she hates you," Erin said.  

                "She does not hate me," Dr. Lecter said.  "Nor you."  

                Dr. Lecter took a step closer to her.  It occurred to him that if she was pushed to the edge, she might well bury that scalpel in his belly.  Handcuffed, he could not defend himself.  But he did not think she would, and it wasn't the first time he had bet his life on his skills.  

                "She wants to put you in a prison cell," Erin protested.  Her eyes were wide in disbelief.  

                "She wants to, but she will not succeed.  Erin, please.  I do care for you, and do not want to see _you_ in a cell." 

                A combination of joy, rage, pain and confusion raged across Erin Lander's face.  

                "First principles, Erin.  What are you?  What is your nature?  A killer?  No, I know them very well.  You are a healer, not a killer." 

                "I can kill her," promised Erin, her voice quavering.  "Why are you doing this?  She'll never stop pursuing you." 

                "And I can accept that," Dr. Lecter said calmly.  As he spoke, he moved over carefully to the table.  His fingers reached out and stole a small silver device from the table.  Erin Lander's surgical forceps.  As he scooped them into his hand, the tip of his little finger brushed the limp meat of Clarice Starling's left arm.  He took in a deep breath.   

                Dr. Lecter's intent was twofold: to get out of the cuffs and then to stop Erin from doing something she would regret for the rest of her life – not to mention him.  Agent D'angelo did not seem to notice the theft of the forceps.  Dr. Lecter pivoted so that D'angelo would not see the forceps in his handcuffed hands.  

                "Put the scalpel down, Erin," he said calmly.  "Remember your promise.  First, do no harm." 

                Tears welled in Erin Lander's eyes.  "But she doesn't love you!" she burst out.  "I do!"  She began to sob like a toddler.  Dr. Lecter nervously watched the hand with the scalpel before deciding that she wasn't going to kill Starling accidentally.  Now _that _would be hideous irony, he thought.

                Dr. Lecter laid his chin against her forehead, all he could really do while handcuffed.  The skin of her forehead was hot.  In his hands, he bent the tine of the forceps with his powerful fingers.  It occurred to him that he could not have done this thumbless; it would have been too painful.  

                "Erin," he said calmly, "it's all right.  I promise you, we shall see each other again.  Both free.  You'll never see the light of day if you do this." 

                Out of the corner of his eye, he saw D'angelo take a step towards her.  He shook his head firmly.  Paul stopped immediately.  How odd, to be partners with the man who meant to put you in a cell.  Erin sobbed against him.  

                "Erin," he said in order to buy some time, "you're not a killer.  You're angry and confused, and you believe Starling is responsible for all of your misery." 

                "We can't," she choked, "ever be together as long as she's alive." 

                "Killing her won't accomplish anything," he said soothingly.  "The FBI will continue to pursue me whether Agent Starling is dead or alive."   He slipped the forceps into the lock of the handcuff and turned it experimentally.  He felt it catch on something and then the cuff on his left wrist rolled open.  Dr. Lecter passed the forceps to his other hand and carefully removed his other cuff.  He did not want the cuffs to rattle, so he took them and slipped them into his back pocket.  A glance over at D'angelo showed that he did not realize that Dr. Lecter was free. 

                "Erin," he said kindly, "will you do one thing for me?" 

                "What?" she asked, still in tears. 

                "Take one step back for me, and then pay close attention.  Once you have heard what I am about to say, you may kill Agent Starling if so you wish."  

                Erin stared up at him with wide, teary eyes.   But she obediently stepped back from Starling's limp body for him.

                "If you'd done this, Erin, I would have killed you," he said.  Her eyes expanded and her mouth dropped open in shock. 

                "You fear I love Agent Starling, and that fear is correct.  But," he said quickly.  "you fear most that your feelings towards me are not returned. And that is not correct, Erin.  Before, when you asked me what I would have done had you died five years ago...I would not have simply said 'Oh, well.'  I do love you, Erin." 

                Hope appeared in Erin Lander's eyes.  Dr. Lecter nodded calmly and plotted out what he planned to do.  The next few minutes needed to be choreographed very, very carefully if he meant to escape with his skin.  

                "Erin," he said calmly, "you will always remember this moment – and your lips will _burn_."  

                Dr. Hannibal Lecter raised his left hand and tilted Erin's chin up to his.  Gently, he bent down and placed his lips on Erin Lander's.   He felt her make a soft sound as he did so.  He could taste the wetness of the tears that had tracked down her cheeks.  The poor girl, she wasn't a killer any more than Clarice was a surgeon.  Behind him, Agent D'angelo let out a shout.  Time for phase two. 

                Dr. Lecter pivoted.  With his right hand, he plucked the scalpel from Erin's unresisting fingers with the skill of a master pickpocket.  With Erin disarmed and Clarice saved, there was only one thing left to do.          Dr. Lecter did it now.  

                Paul D'angelo stood perhaps ten feet from Dr. Lecter.  He knew Lecter was free and was armed.  Dr. Lecter could only hope that he wouldn't fire for a few more seconds for fear of hitting Clarice.  But there was no time to wait.  Dr. Lecter turned and moved in.  He could move very quickly when he needed to, and he needed to now.  

                Five running steps, as fast as a track athlete might move.  Then he was where he needed to be.  His left arm swept up and out, pushing Paul D'angelo's gun hand away towards the ceiling.  Paul fired once, and the bullet whined into the dark wood molding of the dining room wall.  Then Dr. Lecter's right hand was up and slashing, and Paul D'angelo's throat became a red mass.  Dr. Lecter plucked his pistol from his suddenly nerveless fingers, threw his right arm around D'angelo's waist and bore him to the floor.  

                Dr. Lecter stood up then and turned to face Erin.  She stared at him blankly, with a look of shock.  

                "What are you doing?" she shrieked. 

                "Arranging my escape.  Our escape, if you'd rather." 

                Paul D'angelo was still alive, but not for long.  Dr. Lecter knew exactly where he had intended to cut.  Paul's hands were on his own throat, vainly trying to hold together his slashed jugular vein.  He stared up at Dr. Lecter with a terrible knowledge of his own impending death in his eyes.  

                Erin Lander moved over from the table.  At first, she was jerky, like a stiff marionette.  Then, as her mind cleared and she sized up the situation, she moved more smoothly.  She squatted by Paul D'angelo and sized up the situation.  This, she was trained for.  This, she could handle.  Calmly, she pushed the sides of the wound together and held them as best she could.  Blood oozed out over her fingers, but that was okay.  

                "Come, Erin," Dr. Lecter said calmly.  "We are leaving." 

                "Wait," Erin said.  "Wait a minute.  Let me get him stable." 

                "_No." _Dr. Lecter's tone was as sharp as it had been when he had discussed first principles with Clarice Starling in Memphis.  "We will go _now." _

"Dr. Lecter," she implored, "he'll bleed out in two minutes.  I just need my suture kit.  It's in my bag. I can stabilize him, he won't die." 

                Dr. Lecter offered Erin Lander an irretrievably cold smile.  

                "I'm afraid not, Erin," he said.  "I am leaving _now._  You wanted to come with me.  So, come." 

                Erin Lander looked down at Paul D'angelo, gurgling his life away on the floor of the dining room.  A red froth of blood coated his mouth and blew revolting bubbles.  But he was still awake and aware.  His eyes touched hers.  

                "He'll die if I leave him now," Erin whispered to Dr. Lecter.  

                "Every choice has its costs," Dr. Lecter observed.  "And you were about to vivisect Agent Starling."  

                "No!"  Erin Lander protested.  "I mean..I wasn't...not _really...,"_   She glanced over at Clarice Starling's body and turned her gaze away as if horrified at what she had almost done.

                Dr. Lecter smiled tightly.  "You won't be killing him," he explained.  

                "Yes, I will," Erin said.  "Please, Dr. Lecter.  My suture kit.  It'll take five minutes to throw in a few sutures.  You can handcuff him so he can't follow us."  

                "No," Dr. Lecter said peremptorily.  "If you want to come with me, Erin, you must leave now."  He began to walk towards the door.  

                As Erin Lander knelt by the wounded Paul D'angelo, her mind whirled in confusion.  She knew what would happen if she left.  Paul D'angelo would die.  There was no question about that.  It would be a quick death – two minutes and he would bleed out.  But if she left, she would also have Dr. Lecter.  A life of luxury with the man she loved lay before her.  She knew that her med school degrees – both her own and her dead roommates – would allow her to practice in virtually any country she wished.   Clarice Starling would never find them.  

                If she stayed, she knew what would happen then.  Starling would awaken.  D'angelo would survive.  Both of them would tell their stories.  She would be arrested, incarcerated, and treated as a common criminal.  They would put her in jail for trying to murder Clarice Starling and for helping Hannibal Lecter.  Instead of a life of luxury, she would be imprisoned for the rest of her life.  Everything she had ever worked for would be ruined.  They might allow her to be an aide in the prison infirmary.  Maybe.  

                Dr. Lecter was halfway to the door.  Paul D'angelo put his hand on her arm.  He seemed to know what she was thinking.  

                "Please," he whispered.  A bloody bubble blew from his lips.  

                Freedom or incarceration.  Luxury or hardship.  Wealth or poverty.   Success or failure.  Pride or shame.  Continuing as a doctor or being reduced to the status of a prisoner.  All in the balance.  everything she had ever wanted could be hers.  And all it would cost was simply getting up and walking away.  Paul D'angelo wouldn't suffer any more pain than he was in now, and it would all be over in a few minutes.  

                "Erin, are you coming?" Dr. Lecter's voice floated back to her. 

                Erin Lander burst into tears.  "Dr. Lecter, _please!_"  

                Dr. Lecter turned and stopped.  

                "Erin," he said patiently, "it's now or never.  And you do know, you have no guarantee of saving him.  You don't have the equipment.  I knew exactly where I was cutting."

                On the dining room table, Clarice Starling groaned and shifted.  It occurred to Erin that Starling might well kill her once she awoke.

                "Once Agent Starling is awake," Dr. Lecter added, "she will not treat you kindly.  Absent me to blame, she will hold you responsible in any case." 

                Erin Lander turned to look at Dr. Lecter.  Her gaze was open and naked and her face filled with pain.  

                "You told me not to kill her," she implored.  "If you love me, don't make me kill him."  

                "You didn't kill him.  I did." Dr. Lecter observed calmly.  "Now you must decide."

                Erin Lander's eyes flicked from the man she loved to the man on the floor.  The man who would, if allowed to live, help destroy everything she held dear.  If he died, no one would ever know what she had done to Clarice Starling – and what she had almost done. He alone had seen it all.  If he died, her secret died with him.  

                Erin took a long, sobbing breath, lowered her head, and made her decision.


	12. Swapping Places

                Consciousness returned slowly.  At first, there was touch.  She was lying on something hard and unyielding.  There was a layer of cloth between her and the wood: she could feel it on her cheek.  Then, there was smell.  The odor of lemon Pledge and laundry detergent hit her nostrils.  Then, as she took a deep breath, there was the coppery, nauseating scent of blood.  

                Then there were sounds.  She could hear someone sobbing and raspy breathing.  It sounded soupy, as if someone was trying to breathe with a heavy cold.  

                Clarice Starling sat up from where she had been lying on the dining room table.  A vague wave of disorientation hit her.  She put her hands to her face and then looked around groggily.  When she took her hand away, she saw a spot of blood on the cuff of her shirt.  Touching her throat revealed a bleeding wound.  At first she panicked, but then realized after a moment that it would be okay.  She gazed around the room.  

                She saw a bluish blob kneeling on the floor with a smaller black blob atop it.  She blinked stupidly at it.  It took her a moment or two of looking at it to focus and realize that it was Erin Lander leaning over something.  A fallen body, it looked like.  

                Clarice pushed forward off the table and gained her feet unsteadily.  She gazed drunkenly on the sight of Erin Lander crouched over a man's body.  She saw it was Paul a second later, and then a second after that took in all the blood at his throat.  Erin seemed occupied with whatever she was doing and did not turn around.  Clarice saw the glint of silver in her hand.

                Clarice's eyes widened and her lips paled in rage. All rational thought was burnt away in a red haze of fury.  Her right hand fumbled for her gun.  She knew a fraction of a second before her fingers encountered only empty air in her holster that it was not there.  Even that was all right.  Clarice was an experienced hand-to-hand fighter, and could easily take down the small doctor.  

                Clarice launched herself at Erin, her fingers hooking into claws.  She grabbed Erin's arm and the waistband of her scrubs and flipped her off Paul D'angelo.  She saw Paul's blood on Erin's fingers and it fueled her rage further.  There would be time to save Paul, she prayed.  But first she had to incapacitate the little murderer.  

                "What the--," Erin Lander gasped, and then Clarice was on her.  She slammed the smaller woman against the floor and wrenched her arms behind her back.  She was missing her gun but not her cuffs, and she grabbed them out and fastened them onto the struggling woman's wrists.  Then she stood and took in her fallen enemy.  

                She cast a look back at Paul D'angelo, dear Paul down on the floor with his blue shirt turning dark purple from his heavily bleeding wound.  Rage fogged her brain and had its way with her.  She drew back her foot and buried it savagely into Erin Lander's unprotected ribs.  Once, then twice.     The agonized moans of her enemy were a sweet reward to the lizard brain that controlled Clarice Starling.

                But Paul was down and he needed her.  Clarice squatted by him where Erin had and took in all the blood.  

                "Starling," Paul groaned.  "No...you shouldn't...she was...," 

                "I know what she did to you," Starling said tightly.  "Hold on, Paul.  Where's Lecter?" 

                "_No_, Starling," Paul choked.  "Lecter's gone.  She was...not hurting...she stayed."  

                "Where did he go?" Starling said through clenched teeth. She grabbed a gauze pad nearby him and held it tightly against his throat.  It already had some blood on it.  In the back of her mind, she wondered how it had gotten there, but the forefront of her mind was concerned with Paul and with Dr. Lecter.  She put his hand on it.  Paul pointed to the front door.

                "Hold the pressure there," she said importantly.  "I'm going to get Lecter."  

                As she turned, she wondered if Dr. Lander would try anything.  She ran over to where Erin lay on the floor and grabbed her by the front of her scrub shirt.  Clarice's blue eyes blazed with fury into the rictus of pain on Erin's face. 

                "If he dies," she snarled bitterly, "you die." 

                Erin's face worked.  "I didn't," she gasped.  But Clarice was not interested in what a killer had to say.  She dropped the smaller woman to the floor and ran to the front door.  It was already open on its hinges, inviting in a black swath of the dark Ohio night.  The screen door held a plate of glass rather than screen, and Clarice opened it and ran out onto the lawn.  

                There were no streetlights out this far in the sticks.  It took her a moment to see two red taillights, already quite small and far down the road. Clarice gritted her teeth bitterly and ran for the car.  Paul had parked it far away – a quarter of a mile or so.  As she got closer, she realized there was something funny about the way the nose of the car sat on the shoulder of the road.  She stopped and stared at it as it became apparent. 

                The rental car sat on its front tires like an old, tired dog.  They had been expertly slashed, both of them.  Clarice Starling let out a grunt of frustration.  She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her FBI cell phone.  As soon as she did, she knew something was wrong:  the phone was too light and too small in her hand.  She pulled it out and examined the back critically.  Instead of smooth plastic, she saw ridges, a plastic label, and copper contacts.  

                The goddam battery was missing.  

                Clarice screamed in frustration and almost threw the phone away in the grass.  She spun and ran towards the red taillights of the departing Jeep.  She knew she could not hope to outrun the vehicle.  Not on foot.  Against the moonglow, she saw a tiny hand stick out of the window of the Jeep and wave byebye at her.  Astonishingly, the Jeep's taillights flared a deeper red.  

                _You're not getting your little piece of fluff, doctor, _Clarice thought bitterly.  _I promise you that. She's mine.  Even if you get away from me this time. _

Dr. Lecter stopped the Jeep and appeared to be waiting.  Clarice thought he seemed to be enjoying this, waiting to see what would happen next.   

                _I never even got to see him, _she thought for a moment.  All she had seen was his hand and the tiny dot of his head rising over the seat.  

                She turned and raced back to the house.  Both Erin and Paul lay where she had left them.  Clarice checked on Paul.  With horror, she saw his hand limp on the floor holding the pad.  Blood was steadily pooling under him from his torn throat.   She leaned over him with concern and touched his limp cheek.  

                "Paul?" she asked, her eyes wide. 

                He did not reply.

                She grabbed the pad and held it to his throat blindly.  She pressed it down, hoping madly that enough pressure would do the trick.   In that moment she was much like Dr. Lecter, hoping for the reverse of time.  Ardently she wished for teacups to come back together, for Paul to to be up and walking and joking.  For Paul to be alive.  Her hand pressed down hard, hard enough to rock Paul D'angelo's limp head over.

                But his eyes were too glassy and his form too still for her to mistake what had happened.  She grabbed his wrist and felt no beat.  His chest did not rise.  Her eyes closed and tears rose behind them.  

_If only I'd stayed with him.  If only I'd woken up a second before.  If only the little bitch had left with Lecter instead of cutting on him.  _ She looked over at where Dr. Lander lay on her side, watching mutely.  

Clarice Starling did not feel herself to be rivals with Erin Lander, at least not in the forefront of her mind.  Any emotions she had for Dr. Lecter were stored safely away where she dared not acknowledge them.  The emotions she had begun to feel for Paul, however, required no such safeguarding:  her horror and pain at her loss turned to fury.  Absent Dr. Lecter, there was only one real target for that fury:  the handcuffed woman lying on the floor in front of her.  

As Erin Lander had before her, Clarice Starling surrendered to the control of her most basic emotions.  She saw Erin as not a doctor, nor a person.  Erin was merely the murderer of Paul D'angelo, devoid of any humanity.   Worthy only of contempt.   

                "Where is the phone?" Clarice demanded.  It galled her to ask the murderer anything, but she had no choice.  

                Erin coughed and pulled her knees up to protect her stomach. She flinched from Starling's gaze.  

                "Not on," she said.     

                "I need your car keys, then," Clarice demanded.  

                Erin Lander looked deliberately into Clarice Starling's eyes for a moment or two, then shook her head resolutely.    

                Clarice got up and looked around the room for her gun.  Murderess though she might be, Erin Lander wasn't a criminal genius.  Her gun was lying on a dining room chair.  Clarice grabbed it up and checked it quickly.  Loaded, with nothing in the chamber, the way she usually carried it.  A vicious, savage expression crossed Clarice Starling's face as she racked the slide and sent a fat brass cartridge home into the chamber.   She saw her cell-phone battery and grabbed that up too.  

                Clarice walked over to where Erin lay.  As she went, the kindness ran from her face.  She knelt down on Erin Lander's chest.  She knew that it would hurt more where she had kicked Erin in the ribs and sat down as hard as she could.  Erin's face twisted in pain.  Clarice grinned down at her captive with no sympathy.  

                "_Doctor_, I don't have time for this," Clarice said.  "Where are the keys?" 

                Erin Lander set her jaw resolutely and said nothing.  

                Clarice's blue eyes gleamed with fury.  She pressed the muzzle of the gun against Erin Lander's cheek.  

                "Do you think that scares me?" Erin Lander asked, her voice full of ashes and bitterness.  

                "I will kill you for what you've done," Clarice panted.  "It's a question of how much you want to suffer before you go."   Rage colored her words and choked her syllables.  "Do you have the _faintest idea _what you have done?" 

                "I tried to save him," Erin gasped.  "I didn't kill him."  

                Clarice raised the barrel of the gun, meaning to pistol-whip the other woman for her blasphemy.  Erin flinched.  Clarice snorted at her cowardice.

                "Then who did?" Clarice asked bitterly.  She slid off Erin suddenly and lowered the gun.  

                "No, seriously," she continued.  "I want to hear this." 

                "Lecter c-cut him," Erin stammered, staring at Clarice Starling in walleyed fear.  "I tried to save him.  I was trying to save him when you pulled me off him."

                Clarice let out a bitter chuckle.  

                "You are something else," she said sarcastically. "But I'll tell you what.  Give me your goddam car keys and you'll live to see tomorrow." 

                Erin shook her head.  "No," she said simply. 

                "I'll kill you," Clarice threatened. 

                "Kill me, then," Erin said, and her face smoothed out into something that resembled serenity.  "You'd just be doing me a favor, Starling.  I won't let you put him in a cage." 

                "He abandoned you," Clarice said sharply.  "Left you to take the rap for him." 

                Erin shook her head.  "I had a choice, and I made it." 

                "He won't come back for you," Clarice pointed out.  

                Erin nodded and let out a sigh.  Her eyes focused on nothing.  

                "I know," she said softly.

                Clarice Starling gripped her gun and shook with rage.  Already, the death of Paul D'angelo had blown out most of her emotional fuses, leaving a fury behind that knew no bounds.  Now, to be balked so seamlessly by his murderer was positively infuriating.  And the simple fact was, Erin knew where the keys to her car were and Clarice did not.  They could be anywhere in the entire house.  

                For the second time, Erin Lander would prevent her from getting to Dr. Lecter, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

                She sat there, her eyes hot and her face burning, for a moment or two.  Then she decided that if Erin was going to keep her from catching Lecter, at the least she wasn't going to let her be so goddam holy about it. She could watch Lecter depart in the car, and see herself that he had abandoned her.  Maybe that would sway her.  Clarice got her feet under her and grabbed Erin Lander under her arms.  

                "C'mon, sweetcakes," Clarice said coldly.  "On your feet.  You're gonna catch the bullet for Lecter?  Then you get to watch him go.  Watch him zoom right out of your life and leave you to take the fall."    

                She hoisted her captive to her feet and shoved her forward rudely.  Erin did not fight her, but went along peaceably in front of Clarice to the door.  The two women stood on the porch of the country house, watching the tiny Jeep on the road a mile away.  

                Erin Lander started to cry softly when she saw the Jeep.  She strained forward, as if desire alone could teleport her forward to its safety.  Clarice Starling grabbed her arm and dug her fingers into her arm, grinning cruelly at the smaller woman's despair.  

                The Jeep began to move again. Without any real fanfare, it disappeared over the hill and was gone.   Erin Lander slumped as she saw it go.  She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.  

                "You happy now?" Clarice asked briskly. 

                Erin took a moment to answer.  

                "Yes," she said.  "He's gone, and you can't get him.  It doesn't matter what you do to me, Starling." 

                "Paul D'angelo is dead because of you," Clarice hissed.  She spun Erin around to face her and dug her left hand painfully into Erin's chin.  "If Dr. Lecter kills anyone else – _anyone! – _you will be directly responsible for that.  Now give me those goddam car keys, Dr. Lander.  I'm not screwing around with you.  Give them to me or I will kill you where you stand."  __

Erin sighed, and a look of utter loss crossed her face.  

                "No," she said simply.  

                Clarice cursed.  Well, she had given the killer a chance.   Several chances.  If she chose to throw them away, that was nothing to Clarice.  And it wasn't like the world would miss Paul D'angelo's murderer.  She took out her gun and clicked off the safety.  

                Erin Lander knew that the end was very near.  She was not suicidal, but she did share one thing with those who were:  the belief that life could hold no further joy.  Without Dr. Lecter, it was all ashes in her mouth anyway.  She had made her choice and it had turned out to be wrong.  She hadn't even been able to save Paul D'angelo.  _To thine own self be true_, so the old saying went.  A more cynical aphorism occurred to her as a counter:  _No good deed goes unpunished.  _

                But Dr. Lecter was safe, beyond Starling's reach.  And that would at least make her death worthwhile.  Erin Lander was as intelligent as her rival, and she could draw the conclusions easily enough.  If Starling let her live, the FBI would discover that Erin had not killed Paul D'angelo, which would get Starling in trouble for pulling her off him.  At the least, she would be suspended again.  Dr. Lecter had explained a bit to her of Starling's recent shaming in the FBI.  

                Starling would kill her.  She knew it.  She could see it. It was the only way for Clarice Starling to avoid the shame of suspension again.   

                _What a stupid thing to die for, _she thought.  _Clarice Starling's career._

No, she corrected herself.  She wasn't dying for Starling's career.  She was dying so that the man she loved would remain free, and because she had elected to try and save a man who needed her.  That was worth it.  There was honor in dying that way.  She was sorry about D'angelo, but she had tried to save him right up to the point where Clarice Starling had attacked her.  She would be Dr. Lecter's sacrificial lamb, offering herself up to Starling's wrath so that he might live.  

                The odd thing was that both Paul D'angelo and Dr. Lecter had pleaded with her for Starling's life.   But now Dr. Lecter was gone and Paul D'angelo was dead, and there was no one left to plead for her.  She would not give Starling the pleasure of begging herself: clearly, it wouldn't do any good.  It made her wonder who was really the monster.

                She wondered where Starling would do it: if the muzzle would press against her ear or the back of her neck.  Or perhaps Starling meant to blow her stolen kidneys out and watch her suffer.  Or perhaps Starling would do it face to face, so that she would be the last thing Erin saw.  

                "Last chance," Starling warned coldly.  "This is your one chance to redeem yourself, doctor."

                Erin Lander drew in a deep breath and sighed.  She smiled beatifically.  With the end so near, she was able to find some dark peace in knowing that her death had cheated Starling of her prey.    

                "I don't expect you to understand, Agent Starling," she said calmly.  "It's all right.  You don't know any better."  

                  


	13. Her Better Nature

_Author's note: This chapter was delayed by work considerations. Basically, they moved me to another project and decided prior notice was not REALLY necessary for me. So I've been off the computer at work, which is where I was able to do most of my writing. _

The night was quiet after the Jeep had departed. For several minute, neither woman spoke. Clarice's eyes narrowed into slits. Dr. Lander seemed bizarrely calm. Perhaps she knew what she had done and knew that it was fair for her to die. She did not speak or try to run. She simply stood with her eyes closed and her hands behind her back. 

Clarice swallowed. Time to do what was necessary. But her gun seemed to be heavier than normal. It was hard to lift up and deploy. She thought about Paul, dear sweet Paul lying on the floor choking in his own blood, and it became easier to do. A tightness stirred Clarice Starling's chest as she pressed the muzzle between Erin Lander's eyes. 

"Any last words?" Clarice asked roughly. 

Erin shook her head calmly. "I've said them," she said. She seemed completely serene and at peace. Clarice wondered why. She'd killed Paul D'angelo, she ought to be at least upset. 

"Kind of stupid, you know," Clarice said. "Dying for car keys." 

Erin smiled a small, lost smile and shook her head. "It's not that, Agent Starling. You wouldn't understand." 

For some reason, that bothered Clarice in an old place. Clarice Starling's life had been a relentless march to the better side of the tracks. Yet every time she saw someone from more money, there had always been that slight resentment. That look that said _You are below me. _She gave away very little in drive, education, and skills, and on those measures Clarice often came out better. But the class thing was always there, every time she met someone whose daddy had paid their way through the Ivy League, and she knew it. 

That wasn't quite it. Erin Lander came from no more of a privileged background than Clarice herself, from what Clarice knew of her. But she clearly thought Starling lower than her somehow, incapable of understanding her reasons. Even now, as Clarice prepared to punish her for what she had done, she stared at Clarice with a sad, serene little smile on her face. 

From Clarice's jacket pocket came an insistent electronic burr. Clarice's face twisted. She reached into her pocket and removed the cell phone. Still keeping the gun on Erin, she pressed TALK and put it to her ear. 

"Hello, Clarice," came a familiar metallic rasp. "I apologize for making you wait this long, but it's simply dreadful to try and get a connection out this far." 

Clarice sucked in sharply. "Dr. Lecter," she said tightly, with faux friendliness. "It's good to hear your voice. Where are you?" Upon hearing his name, Erin's eyes lit up, but she did not move. The muzzle of the gun remained firmly seated between her eyes. 

"I'm where I can see you," he answered blithely. "And Clarice, I would like to talk to you about that for a moment." 

For just a moment Clarice felt shamefaced, a schoolgirl caught by her teacher doing something naughty. She shook that off. 

"Well, it seems your little friend killed Paul D'angelo," she said. "If you're watching, then enjoy. You ought to like this, Dr. Lecter." 

"Ah Clarice," Dr. Lecter mused, "before, you told me you would never ask me to stop. But I'll ask you to. Or at least hold for five minutes." 

Clarice smiled tightly. "Then give yourself up, doctor," she grinned. 

"I'm afraid that's not an option," Dr. Lecter said. "But pray tell me, Clarice, would you be willing to hear me out? Have you enough charity in your heart to allow her to draw breath for another three hundred seconds? Or has your career ordeal burnt that from you?" 

Clarice was nettled. Then again, Dr. Lecter was very good at that. "Do you think I won't do it, doctor?" Clarice said into the phone, her eyes staring hard at nothing. She tried to look along the hillside for the squat shape of Dr. Lecter's stolen Jeep. 

"Oh, _ no_, Clarice. I know well that you have killed, and killed before." 

"That's right," she affirmed. "I have." 

"You've killed even when not under a fog of emotion, as I suspect you are now. Calm and cool-headed as you pulled the trigger." His voice seemed vaguely sarcastic, as if the idea of being calm and collected when you made the decision to take another life was silly. Clarice Starling, who had on more than one occasion made the calm, cool-headed decision to take a human life, didn't think it was. 

"I suppose so," she said, and plunged on ahead. "What kind of game is this, Dr. Lecter? I assume you don't want me to kill her. So what are you calling me a cold-blooded killer for?"

"Did I use those words? You did, Clarice. Or is that how you see yourself?" He chuckled. "Cold-blooded killer? That would be uncharitable…but _not_ inaccurate." 

"Then I guess you won't mind if I do it now," Clarice said, her twang growing stronger as her emotions rose. Erin closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. 

"Clarice, let me ask you this first. What single unifying characteristic binds those you have killed?" 

She was growing tired of this. But fine, she would play his little game if he wanted her to. 

"They were criminals," she snapped. "Murderers. Like Dr. Lander." 

"_No. _That is open to interpretation, Clarice. Something simpler, something more basic. Something that they were at the _time you killed them." _

Clarice was oddly disappointed. Her mind whirled back to the night at the Tenneseee courthouse. _No. That is incidental. _ She felt the same sense of disappointment now as then, a star pupil letting down a brilliant teacher. 

"They were going to kill me," she said. "Or someone else." 

"Exactly, Clarice. They were armed." He let out a sigh. "You faced them on the field of battle, as a warrior. You are a warrior, Clarice, I have never doubted that. Are you an executioner as well? Coldly preparing to kill your helpless victim?" 

Clarice let out a shuddering sigh. 

"I once asked you also if they would give you a medal. Do you think they'll give you a medal for shooting Dr. Lander?" 

_Time to quit playing his goddam game. _Clarice tensed. "It doesn't matter," she snapped. 

"You needed no medal to remind you of your courage and incorruptibility, just a mirror," Dr. Lecter continued. He sounded almost sarcastic. "Do you feel courageous and incorruptible now?" 

Clarice closed her eyes. "No," she admitted in a defeated whisper. 

"I would like you to do three simple things for me, before you kill Dr. Lander in cold blood," Dr. Lecter said. He was calm and unbothered. "The first thing, Clarice. Turn and look into the foyer of the house. There's a mirror there, so that you can check your appearance as you come in." His tone seemed almost pedantic. Clarice turned and saw the mirror, right where he had said. It was on the far wall, and she could see her own reflection. 

"Look into the mirror, Clarice. Do you see the brave and incorruptible warrior you yearn to be?" 

Clarice studied her reflection in the mirror. She saw the harpyish expression on her face, the cruel line of her own mouth. The bitter cast of her blue eyes. Overall, it was a face of loss, pain and hate. She could barely recognize it as her own. 

"No," she whispered powerlessly, and suddenly the .45 seemed to weigh fifty pounds. She dropped it from Erin's face and pointed it at the ground. 

"Do you like what you see, Clarice? Be honest." 

"No," she admitted again. She could feel her rage ebbing from her, and she wanted desperately to keep it lest she face what she had done. 

"Now, I always looked into the faces of _my _victims as I prepared to kill them," Dr. Lecter said as one killer to another. "Look into her face before you put a bullet through it, will you?" 

"She killed Paul," Clarice hissed, grasping the source of her rage before it slipped away from her. Thinking of Paul reminded her of why she was doing this. 

"Did she? How do you know that?" He still seemed to be enjoying this. 

"She was leaning over him," Clarice said in a weak snarl. 

"Ah yes. Tell me, Clarice, though. Do you see the mark of his blood upon her? Is the mark of Cain upon her face?" 

Clarice Starling looked into Erin Lander's face. Erin did not meet her gaze. Clarice bit her lips and felt suddenly ill. 

"You know that I never lie, Clarice, but I won't tell you I did it, as you'd just say I was lying," Dr. Lecter said. "But before you judge her and execute sentence, tell me. Is the blood of the innocent upon her?" His voice changed tone, becoming mocking and jocular. "Isn't that how they put it in the Bible, Clarice? The blood of the innocent is upon thee, or some such foolishness?" 

Clarice's eyes swept over Erin's face and front. She began to pant. There wasn't any blood that she could see.. Not on her face, not on her shirt. Goddam him. For her part, Erin simply submitted to the inspection wordlessly, lost in her own thoughts. There wasn't any blood. And that had to mean – 

_No. Goddam it, she did it. She had to have done it. Otherwise that makes me – _

She grabbed Erin and spun her around. As her eyes cast down at Erin's handcuffed wrists, she smiled victoriously. 

"Why, Dr. Lecter, I'm afraid the answer is yes," Clarice said. "There's blood on her hands." 

"On her hands." Dr. Lecter seemed to take the news quite calmly. 

"Means I got you there, don't I, Doctor?" she said, her mouth grinning but her eyes hard. 

"How about your own hands, Clarice?" Dr. Lecter asked. "Are your own hands stained with Paul D'angelo's blood?" 

Clarice let out a choked, shocked noise. "Dr. Lecter, I did _not _kill him myself." 

"I'm not asking metaphorically, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said. 

Slowly and unwillingly, Clarice Starling turned her gun hand up. At first she saw nothing and grinned. Then, there it was. On her trigger finger was a red stain of Paul D'angelo's blood. She grimaced when she saw it.

"Well, Clarice?"

"Yes," she said finally, "there's blood on my hand too." 

"How did it get there, do you think?" Dr. Lecter asked conversationally, as if he was an instructor at the FBI academy. "Did you mark yourself in Paul's blood as he died? A little ritual of revenge, vowing to slay his slayer?" 

"No," Clarice snapped. "Goddam you. I got it trying to help him. From when I tried to help him." 

Then the reality of what she had just said hit home to her, and her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Dr. Lecter showed a moment of rare magnanimity and did not say anything for several moments. But she could sense his self-satisfaction in the smug silence he allowed her. 

"You've done two of the things I asked," Dr. Lecter said. "Now for the third, Clarice. I want you to think for a moment of the lambs. The screaming of the lambs that has driven you almost all of your life." 

_That _was easy enough for Clarice Starling to do, and as she heard those horrible screams in her mind she shuddered. 

Dr. Lecter took the opportunity to exercise his pedantic side. Even over the scratchy static of the cell-phone connection, his words were clear. They dug into Clarice Starling's soul with the ease of a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon. 

"Clarice, you're puzzled and angry right now, and you're looking for someone to pay the price of your fury. But if you do, you'll join yourself to the likes of Jame Gumb, who was also puzzled and angry."

Tears welled behind Clarice Starling's closed eyes. Dr. Lecter continued.

"Clarice, if you pull that trigger now, you'll be pulling it again in the future, but it won't be Dr. Lander or myself at the end of the muzzle. Can't you see, Clarice? If you do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life, and it won't be that long. I won't need to kill you for it, Clarice, you'll beat me to it long before I could ever get to you. You ache for the lambs, Clarice. You always have, it's what drives you. Don't you know what will happen if you kill one yourself? They'll never stop screaming for you then. Never. No matter what you do, you'll never earn the silence of the lambs again." 

Clarice gave up any hope of dignity then and burst into tears, great racking sobs that forced her to lean over and grasp the porch railing for support. Behind Dr. Lecter's voice, which was saying something she couldn't hope to understand, the screaming of the lambs burst into full voice. 

"There you have it, Clarice," he said calmly. "If you still want to kill Dr. Lander…you may." 

Clarice could no more have formed an answer than she could have grown wings and flown. She flung the cell phone away. Her arm jerked out in front of her as if warding away demons. The cell phone described a high arc, a black blob against the moonlight, and landed somewhere in the grass. She looked down at her gun as she bawled and suddenly it seemed unimaginably dirty to her, an oily black thing of evil, and she threw that over the porch too. She heard it thud heavily against the earth and trembled. 

Clarice Starling ran for the far railing of the porch and leaned over it. Her stomach churned. She vomited into the azaleas on the side of Dr. Lecter's rented home. Frantically, she rubbed her hands on her pants, disgusted with herself and what she had almost done. She felt sick and angry and dirty. Vaguely, she wondered if either the gun or the phone was under her. Then she decided that she did not care. 

In college, Clarice had read _Macbeth _as part of her English requirements. At the time, she'd considered Shakespeare pretentious bullshit, the sort of thing that rich kids spent way too much time on. Now, she dimly remembered it through her self-disgust and horror and decided that she knew how Lady Macbeth must have felt at the end, scrubbing and scrubbing her hands. She looked at her hands and shivered. 

She turned around and saw Erin Lander looking at her curiously. She seemed neither angry nor sympathetic. She said nothing to Clarice. Clarice opened her mouth and then closed it again. What should you say to someone you were about to kill? _Sorry_ seemed so inadequate as to be laughable. 

"Turn around," Clarice whispered, and reached into her pocket for her handcuff key. When Erin complied, she unlocked the cuffs. Clarice preferred it this way. She did not need to meet the other woman's eyes. Oddly enough, Erin seemed to be ashamed herself somehow, as if she had been the one wronging instead of being wronged. When the cuffs fell from her wrists, Clarice let them fall on the floor of the porch. She didn't want to touch those, either. 

"Get out of here. G'wan, now," Clarice said, studiously studying the floor. Dr. Erin Lander fled back into the house. Vaguely, Clarice wondered what she would do now: the car had two flat tires and she didn't know where her cell phone was anymore. Asking for a ride didn't seem an option. 

A few minutes later, Erin Lander appeared in the doorway again, her purse slung over her shoulder. Dimly, Clarice wondered where she had hidden it. It seemed so unimportant now. The two women's eyes met. Warrior and healer, one Dr. Lecter's hunter, the other his shelterer.

"You all right?" Erin Lander asked Clarice. 

Clarice nodded. 

"I don't hate you, Starling," Erin said, and headed across the porch to the driveway. "But I couldn't let you take him." Clarice shuddered as she heard the engine start. Crushed rock squirted under the Civic's tires as Erin backed down the road. Clarice wondered what she should have said. Nothing seemed right. She watched the Civic's taillights grow smaller and disappear. 

Clarice Starling sat for perhaps twenty minutes on the porch in the dark Ohio night. She rocked on her heels gently. Her thoughts were coming quicker now, more calmly. As she realized how she had almost betrayed everything she held most dear, she trembled, but the trauma was fading. 

"Hello, Clarice." 

There was no mistaking _that _voice. Clarice stood up and looked to and fro. The lights did not make it far from the house before being swallowed up by the rural night. Then she saw him, a silhouette in the driveway masked by his fedora and coat. Clarice stood, eyes wide, as she realized she hadn't heard him sneak up on her. On a crushed-rock driveway. She was losing her touch.

"Dr. Lecter?" 

"Don't think of trying to arrest me," he advised. "I know you don't have your gun and I won't let you get close enough." He chuckled sardonically. "And this time I _do _have my own key." Then his voice changed tone entirely, becoming concerned. His tone seemed a bit strained. "I also had to see that you were all right." 

"I…I am," she said, her eyes casting back and forth in the darkness. Where _had _she dropped the damn gun, anyway? Or the cell phone? "What was all that about anyway?" 

"You needed the same thing as she did, Clarice. You needed to be reminded of your better nature." 

"Are you going to…I thought you…is she in love with you?" Clarice husked. 

"I suppose. Don't bother looking for me around her, I'll explain it to her privately. You'll be watching, Clarice. It's what you do." 

"I'll do more than watch, Dr. Lecter," Clarice said, completing a sentence for the first time in the conversation. Her eyes narrowed. 

"I suppose so," Dr. Lecter said, unruffled. "I took the liberty of unloading your weapon, Clarice, as well as removing the battery from your cell phone. You looked so peaceful on my porch I hadn't the heart to disturb you. You may find them both on the other side of the house. Your car keys are there as well." He turned to leave.

"Wait," Clarice said breathlessly. 

Dr. Lecter turned back to her and cocked an eyebrow. 

There were a thousand questions Clarice meant to ask, and she knew she would only have time for one. It popped out of her mouth before she even knew she had spoken. 

"Do you love her?" she asked, and felt like a complete idiot. 

Dr. Lecter chuckled. "Yes," he said. "As I do you, Clarice." 

Clarice put her hand on the porch railing and stared at him blankly. Dr. Lecter could see the maelstrom behind her eyes. Anger, fear, joy…requited love? 

"You and her are just alike, in so many ways," Dr. Lecter said. "Unfortunately, I can't stay with either of you. You're a hunter, Clarice, a warrior. And she…she is not yet ready. I'll wait until she's more able to travel, as well as when you're not looking, Clarice." He chuckled. 

"Dr. Lecter?" Clarice quavered, staring at him. He watched her carefully. He knew that he had to leave quickly. Better to say his piece and get out while emotional shock held her in its grip.

"Yes, Clarice, I do care for you," he said. "I always have. Remember your better nature, Clarice. It's what enables you to be what you are." 

Then he turned and headed back towards the treeline, his shoes silent on the grass. The night swallowed him up and he was gone. 

Clarice Starling sat down on the porch and shivered once, a soft smile coming over her lips. 


	14. Choices and Destiny

THREE YEARS LATER: 

Clarice Starling walked through the bustle and crowds of Toronto International Airport. She had been up offering expert testimony on a serial-killer case in Toronto. Her RCMP hosts had been most kind, and she had enjoyed the chance to see the city. Although the testimony itself was boring – sitting in a dull courtroom and explaining how the behavioral evidence did indeed suggest that the accused had, in fact, been the strangler terrorizing Toronto for the past year and a half – Toronto was a beautiful city and a lot of fun to tour. 

Clarice was much more content with her life than she had been during the events following Chesapeake. For one thing, she was now officially with Behavioral Sciences. Without Krendler to poison her file and keep the Promotions Board from giving her what was rightfully hers, she was finally beginning to get where she wanted to be. She was less disillusioned with the FBI than she had been. She would never again be the wide-eyed naif that she had once been, but she had achieved a _modus viviendi_ with the agency that she served. 

Her life was not without its pain. Paul's funeral had been hard, very hard. The church had been packed full of FBI agents and Paul's relatives. She had fumblingly introduced herself to Paul's parents and tried to assure them that he had died bravely, in the line of duty. The words had tasted like ashes in her mouth. Yes, it was true that Paul D'angelo had died trying to bring Dr. Hannibal Lecter to justice, but it seemed to be such little consolation. She had begun an e-mail exchange with Paul's parents that continued through until today. 

Jack Crawford had also died. That had been hard too, but not quite as hard as Paul's death. Clarice had delivered the eulogy at his funeral. She missed him too, sometimes. Although not without his rougher points, he had tried to help her as much as he could. 

People define themselves by the values they hold dear, and Clarice was no exception to this. We also recoil from times in which we betray those values, and Clarice was no exception to that either. She tried not to think too much about the farmhouse. When she had almost killed a lamb. 

At first, Clarice was shocked and horrified with herself and had considered leaving the FBI. The single worst day she had was when the forensics came back from Paul D'angelo's autopsy. Test results had clearly indicated that Paul's assailant was approximately his own height. Dr. Lecter. It had been Dr. Lecter. Dr. Lecter had seen fit to save her and Erin from each other, but had not scrupled at taking down Paul D'angelo. 

The day Clarice Starling had seen those results, she had sat down at her desk and stared into space with glassy eyes for a long, long time. In a moment of rage, she had planned to kill Erin Lander. That, she could have forgiven herself for, eventually, had that alone been the case. But she would have been _wrong._ That night, the nightmares had started. 

They started out much like the same nightmares Clarice had always had: her ten-year-old self approaching the Montana barn in the dull gray dawn, both horrified by and unable to resist the screaming of the spring lambs. As she peeked into the barn door, she could see the red-and-white flannel shirt of the rancher, his back turned to her as he picked up another lamb to slaughter. But there was one person she could see. Herself. An adult version of herself. 

Clarice Starling, slaughterer of the lambs. 

She had awoken screaming. 

As time went by, the nightmares became less and less frequent. Clarice checked in occasionally on Erin Lander from afar. Partially it was to see if she was possibly contacting Dr. Lecter. And part of it was to assuage her own guilt. She never did get up the courage to contact Erin directly, and nothing she was able to see from afar indicated anything other than that Erin Lander had gone back to her life as a surgical resident at OSU Medical Center. 

And now, as she walked through the throng, she found her mind turning back to Erin Lander for the first time in several months. Clarice stopped and glanced around curiously. What had made her think of the other woman? Had she seen her and not noticed it? Smelled her perfume? She turned around and stared behind her. 

Clarice turned her head back and forth. The people behind her passed her with a muttered comment. She ignored them. Where? What the hell? Why would Erin Lander be in Toronto? 

Then, she saw it. A small woman, dressed in a smart suit, rolling a suitcase behind her. But this woman was blonde, a rich wheat color. Erin Lander's hair was black. For just a moment, Clarice thought of running after her. But then the crowd closed off between her and the blonde, and she realized that she would simply look silly if it wasn't her. Erin Lander wouldn't be here. She had no reason to be. She was back in Ohio, finishing her residency. 

Clarice chuckled ruefully. She continued on to her departure gate. She took out her laptop and began to review the case files and the report she would write when she got back. That, combined with the occasional game of Solitaire, served to amuse her until they began boarding her flight. 

She took her seat in steerage, which had been updated to be called 'coach'. She continued working as the pilot cheerily announced that this was flight 650 with direct service to Washington, DC, and that this was an international flight. She ignored the perky stewardess who showed her how to put on an oxygen mask and how to use her seat cushion as a flotation device. After all, the great majority of the flight took place over dry land, and if the pilot happened to steer the plane into Lake Ontario there wasn't a whole lot of good the seat cushion would do her. 

The plane began to taxi. Clarice continued to work. Her seatmate unfolded a paper and began to read it. She glanced over at an article in the community section out of boredom. Calmly, it detailed how the new residencies at the University of Toronto's Emergency Medicine program began on July 1st, and proudly listed the new residents. Clarice stared at it, her eyes wide. On the outside, her expression looked blank and confused. On the inside, however, all the pieces were slowly falling into place. 

July 1st. Today was July 2nd. And while the exact date might differ, most residencies began on July 1st. Which meant that however many years later, they _finished _on July 1st. 

"She's done," Clarice whispered. Erin Lander was done with her residency, which meant she would be free to go wherever she liked. Dr. Lecter's voice echoed in her mind. 

_She is not yet ready. I'll wait until she is more able to travel, as well as when you're not looking, Clarice. _

There was one very good reason why Erin Lander would be in Toronto. Toronto, an attractive city which was near the U.S., but not _in _the U.S. Where it would be easier to slip in and out.

"Dr. Lecter," she whispered, and placed the palm of her hand on the perspex of the airplane window. 

For a moment, she had to laugh. Here, she wasn't even a citizen, let alone a law enforcement officer. And what could she really do? _Excuse me, Miss Stewardess, but I saw this woman from behind in the airport and I think Dr. Lecter's here in Toronto, could you stop the plane for me, please? _

A moment of great sadness rose up in Clarice Starling, and she had the horrible sinking feeling in her stomach that one gets when they realize that an opportunity once offered is gone, gone forever. She heard Dr. Lecter's voice again, so clearly that she glanced around involuntarily as if he was on the plane with her. 

_You made your choice, Clarice. Now it's time to let her make hers. _

As the plane leapt into the sky, carrying Clarice home, she stared out at the Toronto skyline and smiled ruefully. 

"Good luck, you two," she said calmly. 

…

The woman got out of the taxi in front of the hotel. This was one of Toronto's five-star hotels, hot and cold running bellhops, and as soon as the cab came to a halt in front of the hotel a uniformed bellhop scurried out with a large gold cart. Graciously, almost obsequiously, he helped the woman to alight from the cab and arranged her bags on the cart. The woman thanked him and proceeded inside the marble lobby to the reception desk. Her reservation and credit card in the name of Angela Brinkley were not questioned. Angela Brinkley maintained excellent credit for a dead woman. 

"Are you here for the surgical conference, Dr. Brinkley?" the desk clerk asked. 

"Yes," the woman nodded. 

"Sign in is right over there," he explained helpfully, gesturing at a table. "You're in room 612." 

She strode purposefully over to the table, attentive bellhop in tow, and signed in. She received a badge and a program. Surgical conferences are not for the weak of stomach; there were presentations on open-heart surgery, gunshot wound repair, and maxilliofacial surgery. All with full-color slides rendering everything in clinical detail, and some even offered frozen organs so that the audience could try it out themselves later. 

She decided to go up to her room instead. The room was large and spacious. She gave the bellboy an American five-dollar bill and thanked him for his assistance. Glancing at the clock told her it was 7 PM. _He _arrived in an hour. He'd been in the air since before she had even left. It seemed somehow unfair, although then again he was coming from very far away, much further than Columbus. 

For a moment, she wondered what he would do if he was recognized. On a 747 flying over the Atlantic Ocean, there would be nowhere to go. It was true that he had been dealing with life as a fugitive since she was in college, but it was her nature to worry about him. 

She plopped herself down on the large bed and kicked off her shoes. The TV clicked on and she began to surf channels. _Baywatch, Hearts in Atlantis, Mask of Zorro, _some soap opera, a Lifetime Original movie, and finally she settled on _Shadowlands. _As she watched C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham fall in love, she was amused, but then as Joy became tragically sick, she decided it wasn't something she wanted to watch anymore and turned off the TV. 

Wine, she thought. He would probably like wine. She took the hotel's wine list and perused it. On the subject of wine, she knew much less than he did, so she used price as a guide: she found the most expensive Chianti on the wine list and called down to room service to order that. She hoped it would do. The starving student she had been for so long gagged at the price of the bottle, but at this point she could afford it. Room service promised to have it up to her promptly. 

It was a promise they kept. Perhaps ten minutes later, a uniformed waiter trundled a cart to the door. On the cart was an ice bucket containing the bottle of wine. The woman sampled it, deemed it acceptable, and asked him to take it off the ice. He was most compliant and she tipped him another five. She stared at the wine bottle on the bureau, hoping that it would indeed be acceptable. 

She slid out of her suit and went into the bathroom. The shower stall was large and tiled with white tiles. The hotel provided an ample supply of small shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and skin conditioners. The water was hot and steamy; a pleasure indeed after her flight. When she was done, she brushed her hair, took her meds, and put on the white terrycloth bathrobe. It was thick and comfortable. But it would hardly do to greet him in, so once she had finished brushing and drying her hair she stepped back into the suit. 

A knock came at the door. The woman started. She flexed her hands nervously and reached out for the knob. Outside was a man in silhouette, the lights of the hallway surrounding his form. 

"Hello?" she said cautiously. 

"Hello, Erin," the man said calmly. "May I come in?" 

She opened the door and let Dr. Hannibal Lecter in. "Yes, of course," she said, "but I'm afraid you have the wrong room. I'm Angela Brinkley." 

Dr. Lecter nodded. Good, that showed promise. Then, as he stepped into the room and got a good look at her, his eyes widened. 

"Your hair," he observed judiciously. 

Dr. Erin Lander brushed a hand through her newly blonde hair and smiled. "I thought it would be more inconspicuous for traveling" she said. "I can always dye it back later." 

"It's quite attractive," Dr. Lecter said. 

"I ordered wine, too," she said, her calm tone belying her nervousness. "Chianti. It's over there. I took it off the ice." 

Dr. Lecter poured two glasses and offered her one. He sampled the wine and pronounced it excellent. Erin seemed inordinately pleased. For some time they chatted about nonconsequentialities; her work, his life in Europe. The wine was pleasant, and Erin began to feel slightly heady. Part of it, of course, was him. After three long years, she was in his presence again. After the farmhouse, he had written her and told her that it was not yet time, that she was not ready to flee with him. 

Erin had been distressed, but she understood, and opposing Hannibal Lecter was not something she had been good at in any case. Not when a simple look from those maroon eyes made her heart pound, her knees go weak, her head grow dizzy. But now…now was the time. 

As if reading her mind, Dr. Lecter smiled and sipped at his wine glass. "So, I must ask you. Have you decided?" 

Erin smiled and trembled. Her hand tightened down on the crystal stem of the wine glass. 

"Decided?" she parried. 

"If you intend to go with me," Dr. Lecter clarified. "It is a momentous choice. It will not be without its joys, but also its terrors. And once done, it can never be undone. You may yet continue as a doctor, that is not difficult. But you'd never practice under your own name again, nor see anyone from your old life again." 

Erin had already thought about this, thought about it alone in her bed on sleepless nights. More times than she would ever admit. It was true there wasn't terribly much to her old life. Mother and father both dead. A few friends and colleagues. A couple of old flames from college. But everything she had she had worked for herself: her good name, her medical degree, her surgical training, the respect of her colleagues and teachers. If she went with him, it would all be tossed in the flames. 

"I know," Erin said softly. 

"I have taken the liberty of reserving two seats on a flight to Paris," Dr. Lecter said calmly. "It leaves tonight at midnight. So you must choose." 

For the second time in her life, Erin Lander was faced with the choice. This time, a human life did not lie in the balance. Instead, it was a simpler question, but no easier to decide. Dr. Lecter versus everything she had ever worked for in her life. If she said yes, she would be with him. That much was true. But the cost would be high: she would be considered a fugitive along with him. She had been offered an attractive position in a group practice in New York City, which might well lead to partnership. If she said yes to that, she could never have Dr. Lecter again. All the respect she had ever wanted could be hers if she took it. 

And the cost was higher even than a job. She would lose her name, and whatever marks she had made on her world would be forgotten. Her four-point in college, the awards and recognitions she had won in medical school and residency. All gone. 

Life with Dr. Lecter would be a combination of wealth and fear. She had little doubt that he was able to lead a charmed life, if so he chose. But she would spend the rest of her life wondering if Clarice Starling would be behind her, if the agents of the law would be watching. She knew that they would never stop seeking out Dr. Lecter, not as long as he lived. If she was with him, her risks would be the same. 

Erin Lander sipped the wine again, and met Dr. Lecter's maroon eyes. She held them with her own as she considered. She took a deep breath. Past and future, the life she had once wanted versus the life she now wanted. All in the balance, and all depending on a single word. The next word she would speak. 

"Yes," she said, and smiled. She followed destiny.

__

Author's note: 

When this story began, it began to see if I could write goo. An attempt to step outside of my comfort zone. (As you may have guessed, gore is my forte.) Somewhere along the line, we moved into angst, jealousy, and killing. It was fun, and I'm deeply appreciative of everyone who read and reviewed. 

Nonetheless, all good things must come to an end. Personally I think God didn't want me to write this chapter. I say this because He did about everything He could to stop me. I got majorly shifted around at work, I had to take my son to the ER (he's OK now), the floppy disk I kept my fics on died mysteriously (actually it works, it just wouldn't access this chapter). But I am nothing if not ornery and decided to get the chapter out. 

It was fun, though, and I think everyone ought to try at least once to write a fic outside of their comfort zone. I've told a few people, and I'll announce it here: I won't write another goo fic until Steel writes a gore fic. And not just Clarice-gets-a-hangnail gore. 

Well, so here ends the tale of Dr. Lecter, his former charge, his former student, and her coulda-been fellow agent. It was fun to write, Dear Reader, and I hope it was fun to read. I'm not sure where I'm going from here, but there are a few ideas burbling in the back of my skull, it's a matter of which one wins out. (It's sort of Darwinian back there.) 

When I started this story, I never once thought it would become one of the most-often reviewed stories on here. (One of Luna's has more, but there have been a lot of people following this story still..) The response to this story has been a lot greater than I ever imagined. To everyone who read and reviewed. Thank you. That's all I can really say. 


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